Épinards aux pois chiches

This is a Spanish dish called espinaca con garbanzos (spinach and garbanzo beans, also known as chick-peas). I was inspired to give it a try by fellow blogger Mitch and his partner Jerry. They are moving to Spain soon and have already fallen in love with the food. They had tasted this dish in a restaurant (I read that it's commonly served as tapas) on their recent trip and wanted to make it at home. Since I had all the ingredients for this in the house, I decided to give it a whirl for Saturday's lunch.

Suprême de volaille poché, épinards aux pois chiches.

I'm glad I did. It's incredibly simple and incredibly good. I used frozen spinach and canned garbanzos. An aside about garbanzos: We have dried chick peas on hand and have used them. They cook up like any dried bean. But I swear that I can't tell the difference between those and the canned garbanzos.

The other ingredients are olive oil, fresh garlic, ground cumin, dried red pepper flakes, smoked paprika (we got a good supply of this in Paris a while back), some cubed white bread (to bind the sauce), some red wine vinegar, and a little tomato sauce (home made from our freezer). I added a splash of Spanish white wine (because I have some in the house) instead of water to make the consistency right.

At the end I squeezed in some lemon juice to freshen it up. I also added a little more hot pepper. I served it along side a chicken breast that I poached in white wine with a bay leaf. A great lunch. I had a second helping of the spinach and chick peas. Then I had another small bowl for dinner later.