A chickpea and vegetable 'pot' dish

'Pot' as in cooking vessel, not as in marijuana. I recently read Michael Pollan's cooked. I am a Michael Pollan fan, and in his description of learning to cook in his book, I was inspired to make a dish that used very finely chopped vegetables as a base, and to let those vegetables sort of cook down into nothingness. Nothing, that is, except for flavour. As is my wont, I used a crockpot instead of a stove top pot. I layered finely diced vegetables, with the onions and garlic right in the oil at the bottom of the pot where they would get the most heat, then proceeding with the cabbage, then carrots and celery. The layers of chickpeas and sweet potato went last, and then enough water to come up to the chickpeas.  The chickpeas and sweet potato, being largest as well as farthest from the heat  will breakdown the least. Which is just what we want!! Even with very very little seasoning (only a bit of salt), this is a very richly flavoured dish. Perfect with socca-ish ...

ingredients:


2 tbsp coconut oil

1 1/2 cup very finely chopped onion
2 cloves of finely chopped garlic

1 cups finely chopped celery
2 cups finely chopped carrot

4 cups finely chopped cabbage

4 cups soaked chickpeas

3 cups diced sweet potato -- if possible use a firm dry variety (I love bonita. others are kyushu and murasaki, also called 'asian sweet potatoes' or 'oriental sweet potatoes') Chop 'em so they are about the same size as the chickpeas


3 tsp sea salt

2 to 4 cups water


directions:

1. turn on the crockpot to high, and add the coconut oil
2. chop the veggies. In the interest of time (I had very little) I used the food processor and did a fine chop.
2. once the oil has melted and the crock is hot, spread the onion and garlic over the bottom, and the cabbage right on top.
3. spread the carrots and celery bits on top of this
4. evenly spread the soaked chickpeas over this
5. sprinkle a couple of tsp of sea salt over the chickpeas
6. spread the diced sweet potatoes over the chickpea layer
7. sprinkle one more tsp of sea salt over the sweet potato