I am back from cruising around Southeast Asia. We had an incredible time seeing the beautiful people and places of this region. During our two weeks we took two cooking classes, one in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and the other in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Plus we had a dinner cooked for us by a famous Vietnamese chef in Hue, Vietnam. Hopefully I can try some of these new recipes in the weeks to come.

It is our first day home and we are jet lagged and do not have the energy to go to the grocery store so we decide to make our dinner from kitchen and pantry staples, Spicy Chickpeas with Pasta.

I add a can of spicy Rotel instead of regular canned tomatoes and my celery and carrots are a little limp but they will work in a stew. The recipe calls for some greens which we do not have so I run out back to see my little parsley plant is still alive! So armed with a handful of parsley and the green leaves from the celery, we have the bitterness from greens that we need.

Spicy chickpeas with pasta