Baked Eggs with Chickpeas

To continue my slow return to ‘Healthy not Hard’ recipes (that is, recipes I’ve previously refrained from sharing as I feared they’re so simple no one would be interested in them), I’m sharing this very simple baked eggs dish.

This is something I make regularly for any meal of the day. This is the basic recipe, but you can add extra veg (grated zucchini or left over roast sweet potato is a favourite of mine, but so many veggies work here) to the sauce to make it even more nutritious and delicious. Although it only takes about 15 minutes from start to finish to make, I do sometimes make a veggie-packed version of the sauce for the freezer to whip out on busy nights, popping it in the pan to cook and adding the eggs just before serving whenever something (usually around 3 years old) needs me more than I need to make a more complex meal.

The garlic yoghurt is delicious, but can be replaced by feta (or cashew cheese to keep it dairy free). If you don’t like eggs it’s also delicious with some seafood popped on the top - salmon, prawns or white fish would be my pick, and add some lemon if you go down that route.

Scroll to the bottom to find the recipe card which you’ll also find in my newsletter (sign up here), or you can screenshot below. They’re also great for pinning to Pinterest (which I’ve returned to as well).

BAKED EGGS WITH CHICKPEAS
Serves - 2-3 / Prep time - 5 minutes / Cooking time - 10 minutes

Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 can of chopped or crushed tomatoes
- 1 can of chickpeas, drained
- 1 onion, diced
- 1/2 a tsp of cumin powder
- 1/2 a tsp of smokey paprika
- 1/2 a cup of Greek yoghurt
- 1 small clove of garlic, minced
- Parsley and fresh crusty bread, to serve.

Method
1. In a medium-sized fry pan, fry the onion in a little olive oil over medium heat until translucent.

2. Add the spices and chickpeas, stirring until fragrant (about a minute)

3. Add the canned tomatoes with a splash of water and cook for 5-10 minutes on a low heat, or until it starts to reduce and deepens in colour.

4. Make 3 small wells in the chickpea mixture, pour in a little olive oil and crack one egg into each.

5. Cook on a medium heat, covered, for 3-4 minutes or until the eggs are cooked to your liking.

6. Meanwhile mix the garlic with the yoghurt and season to taste.

7. Once the eggs are cooked, dollop the garlic yoghurt on top, sprinkle over some fresh parsley and serve with crusty bread.

Enjoy!

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And here’s the recipe card I was talking about which I hope you like (i’d love to hear your thoughts on this and whether you find it useful / if you use Pinterest!).

I can’t tell you how much fun it was to create and capture this. I’m not posting often, but I so love it when I create and share something with you. I love cooking super simply, I always have, and I know that prior to having Alexander when I was working to win as many jobs as I could, that I veered off the path of what I truly love onto the path of what I-thought-everyone-else-would-love.

It’s good to be home and share Healthy, not Hard with you again.

Thank you for reading and for your beautiful support,
Nat x

My Favourite Roll (Egg Mash, Pickle & Swiss Cheese)

I did promise I’d be making simple recipes, and this is about as simple as it gets…

My love for this combination started during my pregnancy when, after the first 22 weeks passed and I could return to eating something that wasn’t pasta with peas and butter or plain pasta or ravioli (morning sickness was intense over here!), I was craving a baguette I’d had in the city a few times.

I couldn’t remember exactly what was in it beyond eggs, pickles and Swiss cheese - the Swiss cheese was firmest in my memory as before pregnancy I absolutely despised Swiss cheese in any form from anywhere. Suddenly, as pregnancy goes, I HAD to have as much Swiss cheese as possible. And I wanted it with mayonnaise.

Enter my new almost-daily pregnancy lunch, as still regularly enjoyed lunch to this day - my Egg, Pickle and Swiss Cheese Roll.

Egg, Pickle & Swiss Cheese Roll.

It’s a very simple combination but incredibly delicious (trust me). It doesn’t really warrant a true written recipe, but here are the key elements;

- Crusty but soft bread (I like a french stick or baguette best and find sourdough too strong for it).
- 1 tbsp of Kewpie Mayonnaise to every 1 hard boiled egg. I use one egg per person and season with salt.
- Sweet Sandwich Pickles (I use ‘Sandwich Stackers’ from the supermarket - it doesn’t taste the same with the lower-sugar pickles)
- Good quality Swiss Cheese (I use Jarlsberg and love to buy the slices, even through they’re infinitely more expensive, I find something strangely luxurious about pre-sliced cheese).
- Lashings of good quality, unsalted butter (I’ve been using Mainland Buttersoft spreadable butter for years, but any good butter will do the trick - just don’t be shy with it, it’s important here!).

How you layer it is really your business, but I go butter-egg-pickles-cheese. I’m always hesitant to recommend how to layer a sandwich/roll/burger as my hubby worked at McDonald’s as a first job and used to correct me on how I layered things when we first started living together over a decade ago. But I do find the butter stops the egg soaking into the bread if you do happen to be packing it up for a picnic, and the cheese stops the pickles on top. So it works for me.

I can’t offer a variation on this sandwich as I believe this is perfect as it is. But if egg, pickles or kewpie aren’t your thing, maybe it’s not the recipe for you.

However if Swiss Cheese isn’t your thing, I’d still encourage you to give it a go. Especially if you’re pregnant…

Nat x