Name: Vegan Spanish Chickpeas with Spinach
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 4 people
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon cooking oil; 1 onion (thinly sliced); 2 cloves garlic (crushed); 2 tins chopped tomatoes; 2 tins chickpeas; 1 teaspoon smoked paprika; ½ teaspoon black pepper; 2 teaspoons sugar (optional); 2 large handfuls baby spinach; Salt; Crusty fresh bread rice or a big pile of green veg

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Happy New Year and I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas full of fun, with a little bit of you time squeezed in there too!

And how are the New Year’s resolutions going? Are you even a New Year’s resolution kind of person? If you are then stick with it. It will be worth it!

To be honest I don’t usually make a resolution but this year I have decided to set myself a 2019 challenge. Let me explain.

A couple of months ago I was reading through a back copy of The Good Food Magazine when I came across a 5-a-day pull out poster. I decided to stick it to the back of a cupboard in the kitchen so we could all keep an eye on what we were eating. It was interesting to see what made up one of your 5-a-day and it helped us increase the amount of fruit and veg we ate.

Recently I’ve been doing some reading on nutrition and the need to not only eat lots of fruit and veg but to eat a wide variety of fruit and veg. Looking at the chart I saw that there are 14 items featured that I have probably not eaten this year. And that realisation gave me the idea to challenge myself to eat everything from the chart at least once in 2019.

So, what are going to be the real challenge foods?

Thankfully most of the foods on the chart are prettily readily available in the U.K., at least for some of the year, although I think getting hold of damsons will be difficult – I’ll probably have to pick them myself. And I have no idea what to do with them apart from make damson gin. Does that count?!

The foods on the chart that I don’t like will also be a challenge. These include prunes, swede, turnip, marrow and broad beans (some childhood memories are surfacing!). However, I am a big believer in the theory that if you eat something often enough you develop a taste for it – especially if it’s prepared well.

I will keep you up to date my journey and it will hopefully inspire some new ideas and recipes and give me a taste for a few things I’ve historically put on the side lines.

So, that’s my challenge! Have you set yourself a 2019 challenge or taken a New Year’s resolution? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

At this time of year it’s common to set some healthy eating goals after all the festive over indulgence, even if it isn’t a specific resolution. I’ve decided to post my recipe for Vegan Spanish Chickpeas with Spinach as it ticks lots of healthy eating boxes and will get three of the veg ticked off my list. This is a fantastically easy, low fat, low carb, vegan recipe that you can have on the table in 20 minutes and is one of my ‘oh my goodness, it’s 5.30 and I still haven’t started tea’ recipes.

If you have never cooked with smoked paprika before then it’s worth buying some. You can get it in all the supermarkets nowadays, or here (affiliate link*) if you wish. It’s one of those ‘game changer’ spices. Just make sure that you buy the mild version, often labelled ‘sweet’, unless you like everything really spicy!

*Affliliate link: I will receive a small percentage of the sale if you purchase this product through the Amazon link above. The price of the product is the same as if you went through the Amazon website directly.