Spinach and Chickpea Eggah (Frugal and Fabulous)

Whilst I love my good quality meat, and of late had been the lucky recipient of some excellent quality meat I can be rather cheap when its comes to cooking. I still spend a fair amount on monthly shop as I like nice things (and tend to also hoard things on special - I have enough teabags and pasta until Christmas I think!) but I do also like a bargain, and this recipe is definitely one of them. Its nutritious, filling and delicious! Perfect hot for dinner, or cold the next day for lunch.

One of my money saving tips is that the chickpeas I always purchase are from the supermarkets 'world food' aisle - I recently got 4 tins under the brand name of Pride, for £1 in Sainsbury's! This compared to their own brand ones retailing at 69p per can! I am really not sure how that maths makes sense.....they still certainly taste like chickpeas..and both say chickpeas on the ingredients.....hmmm...

Last week my dad was coming around for dinner, and due to my shift patterns I hadn't been able (bothered) to go to the shops and instead did the sensible thing of poking around the kitchen cupboards and perusing cookbooks as to what I could make for dinner...... I love veggie food, infact I make it way more than carnivorous recipes but Dad is Dad. And Dad likes meat. But since he admitted to ordering a veggie pie a few months a few months back in a restaurant I have been working the veggie card and my normal anxieties over not serving him meat got put on hold. And I am rather pleased I did. The 'eggah' was soo tasty! And Dad liked it too!

The recipe was based upon a recipe for a Courgette and Onion Eggah, from a readers digest cookbook called 'Healthy one dish cooking' (that is surprisingly excellent - am working my way through it, thus far without disappointment). However I had no courgettes in, but spotted in the small print you could try a chickpea and spinach version.....I knew I had a tin in the cupboard, and a small amount of the latter in the freezer...and a lot of eggs...and the brain got ticking! Now whilst the book suggests two tins, believe me that one is enough! I also added an extra two eggs to bulk up my mixture (I buy trays of free range mixed weight as cheaper) and the one tin was the perfect ratio. I also did a little tweaking to the original recipe and they were very good tweaks!

Primarily I cook nowadays for one, and whilst I love garlic, I am sure my patients on the receiving end do not, so tend to limit its usage. Fresh doesn't keep forever, and some time back a friend introduced me to frozen little cubes of garlic and I was a overnight convert! In lieu of these, I suggest 1-2 cloves fresh garlic, finely chopped.

As mentioned earlier on - it was delicious served warm, with our supper consisting of olives, salad, freshly baked chilli cheese bread and equally great the next day cold for lunch too!

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 large white onion, finely sliced
1 garlic dorit (see abocve)
1 400g tin chickpeas, rinsed and drained
50g frozen weight of chopped spinach, thawed
2 tbsp + 2 tbsp olive oil (or use a little from the tomatoes)
4 sundried tomatoes, diced up
1 heaped tsp dried italian herb mix
6 eggs
4 tbsp milk
s&p

1) Heat the oil, fry the onion over a medium hot heat to cook through but add a little colour, adding the garlic at the end. Cool slightly

2) Beat the eggs, sundried tomatoes, milk, herbs, a little s&p and stir in the chickpeas and drained spinach until thoroughly mixed. Add the cooled onions

3) Pre-heat the grill to medium hot

4) In a oven proof frying pan, heat 2 tbsp oil, pour in the mixture, allow to sit for a minute, then gently start folding in the sides and folding over - think omelette not scrambled! gently repeat for a couple of minutes until nearly set.

5) Transfer the pan under the grill and cook for a further 5 or so minutes, or until evenly golden brown

6) Cool for a few minutes, then carefully ease onto a serving plate. However, I think my beloved pan is getting old and this didn't happen. If you have the same problem, use a blunt instrument to seperate into slices, then carefully ease out using a spatuala.

I'm also sending my eggah over to this months 'Credit Crunch Munch' held by Helen and Camila, as it such a great dish which is so inexpensive! I roughly costed it at £2.25, so roughly 56p per serving!