Spinach and chickpea fritters by kidfood

Ingredients

• one of those extra big packages of olivia's baby spinach (or a pkg frozen spinach thawed and drained) • 1 large onion, roughly chopped • 2 tsp of chopped garlic (I use the pre-chopped stuff they sell in little glass jars) • 1 cup whole wheat bread crumbs • Ground black pepper to taste • Onion and Garlic powder to taste (Ellie likes a lot) • a couple shakes of cumin (or paprika or chili powder, whatever you like) • a can or pkg of ready to eat chickpeas, drained • 2-3 large eggs, lightly beaten (depending on how wet it is)

Instructions

1. In a large frying pan, sautee the onion and garlic in olive oil until soft, add all the spices and sautee a little longer, then add the spinach (might have to do it in batches) and sautee down.

2. Put the whole thing in a food processor (or if you don't have one a blender, but that will probably be more of a pain), add the chickpeas and then blend everything up.

3. Put that mess into a bowl, add the bread crumbs and then determine how many eggs you need (2 or 3). Add the beaten eggs to everything and stir it all up. Basically you want the final batter to be gooey but keep it's shape, you really can't mess up but I usually go with fewer eggs if I can.

4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F, spray a cookie sheet with olive oil. Spoon out a glob of the mixture on to the sheet and then press it down with the spoon to flatten it a little into an inch long patty. Put as many patties as you want to make on the sheet and then spray the tops of each patty with olive oil.

5. Bake at 400 for 20-24 minutes (10-12 minutes on one side, then turn them over and bake 10 -12 minutes on the other side.)

TO FREEZE THE LEFT OVERS (this is the best part!!)

On a clean cookie sheet lay out parchment or wax paper, make the patties as you would if you were cooking them right away (but no olive oil) and put as many as you can fit on the sheet without them touching. Put the sheet of patties in the freezer for a few hours. Then take the patties off the sheet and put them in a ziploc freezer bag. When you're ready to cook them, take out as many as you want from the bag and put on a cookie sheet sprayed with olive oil, then spray the tops with olive oil and bake for 30-34 minutes at 400, turning the patties at 15 minutes.