Covid-19 Homecare Preparations

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."

I'm working, as carefully as I can, on being ready to handle all but the worst of the menacing illness at home. With the burden our hospitals, we are likely to need to do more to nurse one another and ourselves if this hits.

Here comes what I've got so far. I'm aiming for science-based approaches, but not settling for planning to have professionals show me how when it hits. Send more ideas if you've got them.

Medications in stock, plus a tool
Tylenol for fever (not ibuprofen because of starting worries about how it works in troubled lungs, with a plan to pay close attention to not letting the fever get very strong because I kind of believe Chris Cuomo that it saps the will to fight).

Guafenesin for loosening congestion It's the active ingredient in Mucinex, and I choose a version without a cough suppressant added.

Dextromethorphan for cough suppression (planning to take quite rarely because the cough is a path to getting stuff out of lungs)

Trioral rehydration salts: a powder to add to water that restores the big things your body loses, which are salts and sugars. It fits WHO recommendations and it aligns with a doctor friend's advice when one of you was unwell at her house. Gatorade works the same way, but this adds fewer other ingredients on top of the needed ingredients.

A thermometer for knowing your temperature yourself and alerting medical folks.

Health boosting steps now
The wretched virus is most dangerous if it gets a grip on our lungs. Here's what I'm going to become a harder target for the nasty invaders.

Walking more for improved endurance and practice with drawing in air. Beau goes out with podcasts, while I mostly stay inside with news or The West Wing.

Breathing exercises, following this video, up to the point where the doctor is unclear about how to do the lying prone (on your stomach) part. For me, these are a bit taxing, and I'm hoping that doing them now several times a day can change that a bit and get me a bit stronger. More confidently, I think if I understand them and am no longer puzzled about how to do them now, it will be easy to use them if I'm ill.

Nutritional supplements. I'm taking an ordinary multivitamin, plus a slow-release iron tablet because I'm prone to anemia and anemia is prone to leave me breathing heavily after small efforts, plus vitamin C to support metabolizing the iron. All young persons related to me: my mom also gets anemic, and this may run in the family, so I recommend at least a multivitamin with the iron. I've seen references to zinc but haven't gotten confident about trusting that advice, so I'm settling for "hey, my multivitamin has a modest amount of that."

Something old, something new
Steam. In case of a challenging cough, consider letting the shower turns the place into a steam room, and staying there for, say, half an hour. This is an idea from my mom, more aggressive than a humidifier in the room. (Humidifiers can be good, but I'm not good at maintaining them).

Postural drainage is the other approach I will apply if anyone here gets ill, starting from this description. I've seen multiple websites with versions of this, and I think it's way clearer than the video I shared above about the thing to do while prone. This is also about helping one's lungs clear by not spending all one's rest time in one position, and a bit about raising the lowest parts of your lungs higher than your wind pipe for a while.

Food in case
If the people in your house take turns being sick, you can take turns offering each other help getting food you can manage. If you go down together, that's tougher. To give us some lead time, I've stocked extra:

• Frozen juice
• Ginger ale
• Saltines
• Canned soup
• Chicken broth

I hear I should also add:

• Pedialyte popsicles

With many delivery services backed up, I recommend also thinking about which friends you could ask for help to restock if you need more.

Not alone
For ordinary colds, there's no reason to tell a neighbor, a friend who lives near by, a clergy member, or (ahem) a parent or child. You have a pretty good idea of the limits on how bad it gets.

Our current enemy is a different matter. Accounts from survivors and those who cared for those who didn't make it suggest the lung difficulties can kick in rather fast and decisions to pursue hospital care can turn urgent quite suddenly.

Accordingly, I plan to let a family circle, plus several neighbors, know pretty much at the first sniffle, and then check in daily. I recommend a similar plan for all and sundry. For certain persons who know who they are, "recommend" can be accurately replaced by something like "insist on". Having each other is one of our strengths, and we need to use that strength for this struggle

"We will get through this, and we will get through it together."

Rosemary Black Beans with Rice

This is happy vegetarian food, and only the optional yogurt makes it not vegan. It takes very little effort, but does need a cook paying vague attention  to the beans in the oven for several hours.  It's at its best if you have Rancho Gordo midnight black beans in the pantry ahead of time.

TOOLS
Strainer or colander
Dutch oven with lid
Stovetop pan with lid
Oven mitts
Measuring cup
Big spoon

INGREDIENTS
One pound dried small black beans
Rosemary, either several sprigs fresh or a tablespoon dried
Three cloves of garlic, either crushed or minced

Two cups rice (brown for added nutrients or white for beauty)

Yogurt or sour cream (optional but good)
Salsa (optional but good)

STEPS
Preheat oven to 325.

Rinse the beans in a strainer.

Put beans, rosemary, and garlic in a dutch oven. Add enough water so that there's a full inch above the beans.

Bring to a boil on the stove top. (This article notes that you do want to do things a little differently with red pinto beans or white cannellini beans, and also confirms that you don't need to soak beans when you use this oven method)

Cover and place in the oven.

Set a timer for 70 minutes and carry the timer with you everywhere you go.

After 70 minutes, take one bean out of the pot give it a few seconds to cool, and bit it.  It'll probably have a bit of crunch and a bit of dryness inside.  If so, set your timer for 10 minutes and put the beans back in the oven.  Expect to do this repeatedly until you really like the texture and taste of your beans.

Meanwhile, bring four cups of water to a boil in a pan on the stove top, and add the two cups of rice. Reduce heat to very low, and cover the rice.  Figure out how long it needs to cook (often 20 minutes for white and 40 for brown), and set another timer for that.

When the rice timer goes off, check that the rice tastes done. If yes and the water is gone, recover and set somewhere off the heat for five minutes. If yes and there's still water, drain and then set somewhere for five minutes.  If no and there's still water, cook two minutes and check. If no and there isn't still water, add a quarter cup or water and cook two minutes and check.  When you think the rice is done, do the thing about the five minutes.

When you like your beans, drain them in a strainer.

Serve with optional yogurt and optional salsa.

LUXURY VARIATION
The first time I made this, I put a tablespoon of butter in the rice pan, melted it, and added a half cup of chopped onions.  I cooked the onions on low heat until they were very soft, and then added the rice and boiling water. That adds a really nice added flavor.  Done with oil instead of butter, would also work for vegan friends and lactose intolerant pals.

Meso 'Merican Magic

This is insanely good food: black beans, red quinoa, and yellow corn.  It needs two hours or even a little more, but very little work.

The ingredients are half a cup of black beans, a cup of red quinoa, three cobs of corn, and maybe a small onion and maybe some whole cloves, and a bit of salt.

The Black Bean Part:

• Put half a cup of black beans beans in a pot with enough water to cover, plus an inch
• Bring to a boil
• Remove from heat and wait an hour
• Drain and rinse
• Put back in the pot with enough water to cover, plus an inch, again
• Peel a small onion but don't cut it.  Stick some cloves in the onion. Or don't.  Or don't even do the onion
• Bring to boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cover
• In half an hour, bite one bean to see if it's done
• From then on, use timer to remember to check every ten minutes until done
• Drain (throw away onion and clove if they happened at all)

The Red Quinoa Part (starts after the beans have been cooking for half an hour):

• Rinse a cup of red quinoa
• Put it in a pot with two cups of water
• Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cover
• Cook for 15 minutes
• Check to see if the little white rings have appeared (If not, cook a bit longer and check again)
• Check to see if there's water left (If so, drain off the extra)
• Put the lid back on and let it sit for ten minutes to get fluffier

The Yellow Corn Part (starts when you cover the simmering quinoa)

• Peel three corn cobs and break them in half
• Place in a pot with enough boiling water to cover, plus an inch
• Bring to a boil, lower heat to a simmer, and cover
• Cook for five minutes
• Drain
• Cut corn off the cobs.

• Alternative: open a can of vaccuum packed yellow corn

The Combining Part:

• Combine
• Add a little salt

Lentils and ground lambporkturkeybeef

8 cups water
1 pound lentils, rinsed, drained

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 tablespoons ground cumin,
1 teaspoon chili powder
2 garlic cloves minced

1 pound ground lamb or pork or turkey or beef
1/2 onion, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Cook lentils in water for about 20 minutes, testing for doneness by biting a few.  There should be more crunch left than in a lentil soup.

While the lentils are cooking,  combine the next five ingredients, whisk together until they merge nicely, and set aside.

Add the other olive oil to a frying pan and heat.  Add onions and cook five minutes, stirring occasionally, until they're getting soft.

Add the meat to the onion brown, breaking it up and stirring and flipping until it's all brown and in small pieces.  (If there's a lot of fat in the pan, run hot water into the sink, use a colander to drain the meat with the water still running, leave the water running, and flip the meat and onions back into the pan.)  Add the remaining four spices to the meat, stirring rapidly to spread it around and paying attention to whether you're smelling the spices as they heat.  Move the meat into a small bowl.

When the lentils are done, drain into a colander and move to a large bowl.  Mix well with the oil-vinegar-spices you set aside.

Serve bowls of the lentils with a smaller amount of the meat nestled on top.

This recipe uses altered quantities, less salt, and different meat than the original I found at Epicurious.

Lentil Soup

Ingredients
1 pound of lentils
half pound mushrooms
half pound carrots
half an onion
tablespoon of minced garlic
olive oil
bay leaf
teaspoon of oregano
teaspoon of basil
one 28 ounce can whole tomatoes
water
two tablespoons vinegar (red wine vinegar ideal, any other kind can work)
salt

Preparation
Put the lentils in a colander and rinse them with water, turning them over a bunch looking for anything that turns out to be a little rock or a little stick.

Cut the mushrooms in slices.

Peel the carrots and cut them in slices.

Peel the onion and cut it up pretty small.

Dump the tomatoes and their liquid into a bowl and pull each one apart with your fingers into several pieces.

Cooking
Put the lentils, tomatoes, bay leaf, basil, and oregano in your soup pot.

Put a frying pan on the stove over medium heat.

When you can feel warmth holding your hand four inches above the surface, add just enough oil to cover the bottom.

When the oil shimmers a little, add the carrots, and stir and flip frequently. When they've all changed color a bit, dump them on top of the lentils.  (Could take five minutes)

Add a little more oil to the frying pan, add the onions, and a gain stir and flip frequently. Watching for them to be translucent.  (Could take five minutes)

Add the garlic to the onions and stir and flip constantly until the smell is strong and a bunch of the garlic bits are brown.  (Could take less than a minute) Flip the garlic and onions into the soup pot.

Add a little more oil to to the frying pan, and add mushrooms.  Stir and flip constantly until all the mushrooms are partly brown.  For this one, you may decide you need to add a second bit of oil, but don't add lots: mushrooms like to drink it all but don't need as much as they want. (Could take two minutes.)  Flip them into the soup pot.

If the pan has nice brown stuff on it, add a cup of water, and then push your spatula along the bottom to get the brown stuff to melt into the water. Add the water to the soup pot.

Add seven cups of water to the pot.

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cover.

Simmer for an hour.

Add the vinegar.

Add some salt and pepper, stir well and decide whether to add more.

Variations
Celery, treated like the carrots, makes many people happy. I don't care for the texture of cooked celery, but you might.

Frozen corn, canned corn, or fresh spinach could be added 50 minutes or so into the cooking.  Thin sliced kale might be good too.

Everything except the lentils is about flavor. If you're missing something that's on the list, you can use alternate stuff: parsley, thyme, red wine, lemon,  chicken stock, chicken bouillion can all contribute.  Bacon or ham or sausage would make something different but lovely.

Grated cheese makes it better, though less thrifty.

Regular spaghetti sauce with anything but spaghetti

Sometime very early in mom-life, I realized that children with forks could handle almost every kind of pasta better than than they could manage spaghetti.  Somewhat later, I realized that Susans with forks also benefit from this strategy.  

Ingredients
1 pound ground beef (Your mom strongly recommends for Laura's Lean or explicitly organic, on account of hormones and slime and ugh.  She even more strongly recommends the kind that's at least 90% lean, meaning no more than 10% fat.)
1 large jar spaghetti sauce
1 pound pasta (gemelli, rotini, fusilli, bow-ties, elbow macaroni, etc.)

Steps
Put the pasta water on to boil.

Put a dutch oven on another burner, turn on the heat high, and put the ground beef into the pan right away.  After a minute or two, start breaking it up with a spatula.

When the beef is all in little pieces, make sure you can get the lid off the spaghetti sauce.  If brute strength is not an option, try whapping the edge of the lid with the side of a knife a lot.

Go back to flipping and stirring the ground beef, watching for red and pink bits until there are absolutely none in sight.

If you took your mom's advice and got the lean beef, there won't be much grease in the pan. You can just add the sauce, stir a couple of times, and move the pan off of the heat.  If you didn't, go to the serpents' tooth directions below.

Put the pasta in the water and set a timer for the recommended number of minutes.

When the timer goes off, use a spoon to take out one piece of pasta, drop it in the colander, run cold water over it, and bite it to see if it's right.  

If yes, drain all the pasta.  

If no, cook another minute and check again.

Serpent's tooth directions
When the beef is cooked, if you didn't take your mom's advice and there's lots of grease, run the hot water in the sink until its really hot.  Leave it running while you put a colander into the sink and empty the beef pan into it.  Put the pan back on the stove, shake the colander once or twice, and then quickly toss the beef back into the pan.  Now you can add the sauce, stir a couple of times, and move the pan off the heat.

Put the pasta in the water and set a timer for the recommended number of minutes.

Remember the greasy colander?  Go back to the sink and run hot water all over the colander to get the grease off of it.  Now you can turn off the hot water. (If you turned it off before your mom said to, you'll get what you deserve and I won't even bother explaining about grease in sink pipes.)

When the timer goes off, use a spoon to take out one piece of pasta, drop it in the colander, run cold water over it, and bite it to see if it's right.  

If yes, drain all the pasta.  

If no, cook another minute and check again.

Baked Potatoes

Ingredient
Potatoes, large, labeled Idaho and/or Russet

Steps
Preheat oven to 400.

Wash the potatoes: not with soap, but with running water and your fingers in case some of the dirt that makes them into potatoes is still on the skin.

Put the potatoes in the oven on the rack, and use a fork to poke one set of holes in each potato.

Check after 45 minutes.

If you can see that the skin is a bit puckered, they're probably done.

To test further, you can:

• Put on an oven mitt and squeeze one gently.  If it's feels soft like a baked potato, it's done.  If the skin is a bit hard, and feels like it's bending or breaking, it's definitely done.
• Take one out and cut it open.  If it looks like a baked potato, with a bit of flaking of the white part, it's done.

Salt and pepper will make it better.  Butter or sour cream or grated cheddar cheese, better still.

Those spicy chicken bits in those lovely wraps

This recipe reconstructs one from the best cookbook I ever left at Kroger.  The original called for grilling the chicken, but that never turns out to be one of my options.  I should try using the broiler.

Ingredients
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts cut into slices about an inch wide (or thighs done the same way or store prepped chicken fingers)

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
a pinch of cloves
a pinch of cayenne pepper

More oil

1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced

spinach leaves
flat bread sandwich wraps or tortillas.

Steps
Check out the chicken and see if you need to do any cutting to get it the right size.

Combine the next seven ingredients in a glass or pottery bowl and mix well.

Add all the chicken and toss it around with your fingers until the stuff is on all of it and then wash your hands. Or use a spoon and spend three times as a long and still have to wash your hands afterward.

Cover, and refrigerate for an hour.

Add a thin film of oil to a frying pan and heat until a tiny bit of garlic from the chicken bowl sizzles when you drop it in.

Add pieces of chicken, shaking each one a bit over the bowl to limit how much of the marinade comes along.

Turn them after a minute, and keep turning until they look really beautifully browned, maybe with some little black bits.  Then cut the thickest piece open to see if it's cooked-chicken color all the way through.  If not cook all of it a bit longer and test another piece.  (Someday I will amend this recipe with a better idea of how long to do this cooking.)

Move that batch to a plate, and do another batch the same way and a third if necessary.*

As soon as the last chicken is in the pan, pour the marinade down the drain and rinse the bowl well with water.  (This may not be necessary if Beau Weston is in another state at the time.  If you are sharing a house with Beau or someone else who will smell something good and want to try it as a sauce, it is essential.)

When the chicken is done, combine the cumin and yogurt, and then stir in the cucumber.

Make your wraps with a layer of spinach leaves, two spoonfuls of the yogurt/cucumber, and one of two of the chicken pieces.

* If the pan has brown bits stuck to it, that will actually make the food better.  If it gets completely black on the bottom and starts smoking, not so much.  In that case, between chicken batches, pour in a cup of water and use a wooden spatula to push along the bottom until most of the stuff comes off.  Pour all that stuff down the sink,and put the pan back on the stove until it looks very dry.  Then add new oil, and go back to cooking the chicken.  (BTW: adding water and scraping the pan is also called deglazing.  In lots of recipes, you keep the liquid in the pan and use it to make a lovely sauce.  Not this time, but it's useful to know.

Turkey/Navy Bean Chili over Rice

Two notes

This is a five-hour project.  It's not a vast amount of work, and you can do lots of other things while things simmer, but you have to be somewhere in the house to do the "stir occasionally" part.  It's perfect for the first cold, rainy weekend of the year.

Also chili is very mild: spice lovers could include a chopped jalapeno when they sauté the vegetables and double the chili powder.  The recipe I started with did that.

Ingredients

 1 lb bag of navy beans

1 lb ground turkey

2 cups uncooked brown rice (six cups cooked)

1 onion (finely chopped)

1 green pepper (diced)

2 stalks celery (finely chopped)

2 cloves garlic (minced)

1 Tbsp olive oil

2 bay leaves

1Tbsp chili powder

2 Tbsp cumin

1 Tbsp turmeric

1 Tbsp salt

2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp oregano

1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes

shredded cheese (optional)

chopped green onion (optional)

sour cream (optional)

Steps

Put the beans in a pot with a quart of water.  Bring to a boil for one minute, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and leave to soak.

After two hours, drain and rinse soaked beans, then set aside.

Heat oil in stockpot over medium high flame. Sauté onion, garlic, celery, and green bell pepper s until onions are translucent and the other vegetables are slightly tender.  Remove from pot and set aside.

Add six cups water, soaked beans, tomatoes and spices to the sautéed vegetables,. Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for approximately 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

After the chili has cooked for an hour, put the brown rice and four and a half cups water in a separate pan, bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to low.  Set timer for 45 minutes.

Brown the turkey in a frying pan.  Drain and add to the chili.

The chili will be ready at the same time as the rice.

Serve in bowls and garnish with shredded cheddar cheese, chopped green onions and/or a dollop of sour cream.

That rice casserole

You know, the one that I made in the old light blue dutch oven that Grandpa Joe bought sometime in the early 1950s?  It's a fancy thing you can make to go with a very simple roasted chicken, and instantly have company dinner.  It's different enough that you need to make it three times to be comfortable with all the steps.

Ingredients
2 cups rice
8 tablespoons of butter (why it tastes so good)
8 ounces of mushrooms, sliced up
A cup of sliced up celery (probably four to six stalks)
4 cups water
A tablespoon of soy sauce
A tablespoon of oyster flavor sauce (A Chinese cooking ingredient usually located near the soy sauce)

Equipment
A frying pan and a casserole dish that holds two quarts or more.

Alternately, a dutch oven that can be both a frying pan and a casserole dish, plus a bowl to put some partly cooked things in so you can partly cook other things.

Steps
Preheat the oven to 350.

Slice up the mushrooms and the celery.

Put the rice in the frying pan and put in on the stove over medium heat.  Stir the rice constantly as it turns golden, about five minutes.  Pour the rice into the casserole dish.

Put two tablespoons of butter into the frying pan with about a third of the mushrooms and celery.  Cook until tender, maybe five minutes.  Pour that on top of the rice, and repeat the process two more times.

Combine the water, oyster sauce, and soy sauce. Mix well, then pour on top of the rice and vegetables, and mix well again.

Cover and put in the oven.

Bake 35 minutes or until all liquid is absorbed.

Before serving, use a fork to toss the rice lightly around so it's loose and fluffy.

Source
This one also started out in The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, except that back then it had a lot more butter and it had onion and beef broth, where now it has two ingredients from Chinese cooking instead.

Sesame Pan Bread

This single rise, three-hour recipe yields un-fancy bread that I think should be torn apart, rather than cut.  The recipe is for two loaves baked in cake pans.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 packages active dry yeast (if you buy fast-rising, expect things to happen faster than I say below)
About 8 cups flour
2 cups water
1 cup milk plus a little more to brush on the top of the loaf
One egg, slightly beaten
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1/4 cup butter plus a little more to grease the pan

That salad with the orange pieces

It was arugula, oranges, goat cheese, and dried cranberries, with a dressing made with olive oil, lemon, and orange juice concentrate.  I got the recipe from Williams-Sonoma. That is all.

Real chicken soup

Real cooking, where you put in a bunch of effort one day and then have food for several.  

Shopping tips:
1. If you don't already have spices, the list below could get expensive, but you can leave some of them out.
2. If you don't have a great strong spatula or spoon to use getting the chicken out of the pot, buy a chicken that has already been cut up or three or four pounds worth of pieces.  That'll cost a little more, but that beats dropping the chicken.

Ingredients
A whole chicken (preferably one with giblets, preferably 3 to 4 pounds)
1 pound of carrots
2 pounds of potatoes (either little ones or a few big ones)
8 ounces of mushrooms
A yellow onion
Minced garlic
Bay leaf
Thyme
Parsley
Salt
Better-than-Bouillion chicken
12 ounce package of frozen green beans--the cut up in one-inch chunks kind.
Pepper

Saltines because you always have to have saltines

Equipment
Necessary: A soup pot with lid (or a slow cooker), a knife, a carrot peeler, a strong spatula or metal spoon, a big fork
Helpful/optional: A frying pan (optional), a cutting board, a colander

See, you can tell it's real cooking because we're already at the break and not yet at the instructions.

Ten fast meals that are better than pizza

1.  Buy a rotisserie chicken and stuff from the grocery salad bar.

2.  Corned beef hash from a can, with mandarin oranges.

3.  Kraft mac-n-cheese, with peas (because mom always serves them with peas).

4.  Scrambled eggs with rye bread toast and orange juice (because mom pretends that counts as fruit).

Roast Cauliflower

Ingredients
A head of cauliflower
Olive oil

Option 1: salt

Option 2: salt, cumin, cardomom, coriander, turmeric, cayenne

Equipment
13 x 9 baking pan

Steps
Preheat oven to 400.

Cut the leaves off the bottom of the cauliflower so you can see the stem.

Cut the big stem off so you can see the florets.

Break up the florets into chunks the size of golf balls.  The ones that won't break you can halve with a knive.

Arrange the florets in the pan with the florets up, ideally with very little of the pan bottom visible (but it's not a big problem if some shows.)

Choose an option:

• Option 1: Sprinkle the tops with about two tablespoons of olive oil, not worrying about covering everything.  Sprinkle the tops with salt.
• Option 2: In a little bowl, combine two tablespoons olive oil, half a teaspoon each of salt and cumin, a quarter teaspoon each of cardamom, coriander, and turmeric, and a pinch of cayenne.  Use a fork or a tiny whisk to mix them together really well.  Dribble that over the florets.

Roast for 20 minutes, then poke with a fork.  If they feel like cooked broccoli feels on your fork, take them out.  If not, roast a little longer.  It's really nice if some of them have brown, slightly crispy bits on the bottom.

Chana Masala (aka the chick pea thing)

My go-to vegetarian dish.

Ingredients
Olive oil

2 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground ginger

2 bay leaves
1/4 tsp each of clove, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, cardamom
2 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
1 tsp salt, or to taste
4 15-ounce cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Optional: two Tbsp cilantro (I never have this in the house)
Optional: Yogurt to go on top

Optional: Brown rice to go underneath

Equipment

Big dutch oven (in a pinch, start with a big frying pan, then switch to a soup pot when you add the chickpeas).

Steps

Mix together all the spices except the salt.

Film the bottom of a large saucepan or Dutch oven with olive oil, and place the pan over medium heat. 

Add the onion, and cook, stirring frequently, until it is deeply caramelized and even charred in some spots. Think twenty minutes or more, because the more color, the more full-flavored the final dish will be.