spaghetti with chickpeas

from smitten kitchen by deb

Anyone running the marathon this weekend? I have a hunch that the overlap between people who, say, read a home cooking blog that unapologetically embraces butter and people who, say, run 26.2 miles in their spare time as an personal challenge, is slim-to-none. And yet, I know a handful of people running this weekend that love good cooking as I do, despite the fact that we obviously have nothing else in common. Seeing as they run when not chased, I bet they also do dishes for pleasure and go to bed advisably early for a less cranky tomorrow. Weirdos.

But we can meet at a middle ground affectionately called “carbo-loading”. Runners do it before big races. The rest of us do it because it’s winter and we’re evolutionarily programmed to pad ourselves for warmth. Or because we’re hungover. Or because we’ve been eating too much salad and strive for balance (snerk). And when it comes to carbo-loading, I think this spaghetti with chickpeas wins all trophies. It’s the potato pizza of pasta dishes; the squash risotto of comfort foods; the breadcrumb-topped baked macaroni-and-cheese from the files of So Good It Could Not Possibly Be Bad, Right?