What's in the pantry?: Spicy chickpeas with abruzzese sausage and artichoke hearts

Artichoke hearts are the lipstick of my pantry. They can add the final touch to an elegant ensemble, but, in a pinch, you can throw them together with the culinary equivalent of jeans and a black t-shirt and voila – all dolled up!

I’ve been doing more dolling up than elegant ensembles lately. I’m working on the biggest writing project I’ve ever undertaken, and I spend most days floating around in another world. About 2.5 minutes before the afternoon bus delivers my children, I pry myself back to reality, try to remember my name and how to find my way to the kitchen. Then I greet my kids with assurances of snacks and dinner and all the other things that mommies provide, and which I now pretend to have been thinking about and planning and organizing.

Last week, I was so distracted I forgot to go grocery shopping all together, which left me sorting through the 48 condiment jars – I wish I were joking – that have grown quite comfortable now that they don’t have to compete with meat and vegetables for space on the shelves of my fridge. But somehow curried olives with a marmalade and mustard sauce didn’t seem like it would go over very well. And so most nights found me standing in front of my pantry, can opener in hand, screaming children at my feet, thinking, ‘OK, inspiration hit me hard. Now. And make it one of those 10-minute-and-under ideas could ya?’

More often than not, the answer was chickpeas. Really they are the answer to most things. Go ahead, try me. Ask me a question. Anything. What is cheap and round and yummy and healthy? Chickpeas. What is the only protein left in the pantry since you used up all the black beans? Chickpeas. See it’s easy. Try it some time.

No really, you can dump a can of chickpeas into just about anything, except maybe marmalade. Chickpeas, tomatoes and cumin. Yup. Chickpeas and salad. Unhuh. Or, on nights like this one, when you are really down to the scratchings, chickpeas, olive oil, and a pan. It works in a pinch. Chickpeas are, in keeping with the clothing analogy that I started somewhere up at the top of this ramble, the black t-shirts of my pantry.

So the other night I had the chickpeas frying in olive oil with a pinch of grey salt and crushed red pepper when I decided to forage around for something, anything, to dress things up a bit. And there in the very back of the pantry hiding behind the tomato paste was a can of artichoke hearts. Ahhhh, we were going to have a feast. Inspired by my luck, I went back to the fridge and started shoving jars around. Behold a half a stick of leftover dry sausage. Yippy!

In they went. And really, the results were good enough that I’d make this dish again even if I had options beyond mustard and marmalade.