Potato and Chickpea Curry

I love chana masala. I have a recipe...somewhere...from my friend Shithi, from Bangladesh. I need to find that. But in the meantime, I decided to surf the web for some potato and chickpea curry recipes.

I had a couple of promising recipes from my shelf - World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffrey has a Caribbean version and a few other good options. But I was missing a few ingredients. I figured if I was going to adjust the recipe right off the bat (which I almost always do), it should be by a minimal amount.

Then I stumbled upon this recipe from Simply Recipes. It was delicious! Now, I made the following adjustments:

Used 22 oz of diced potatoes (I bought a 10lb bag)
Used dried chickpeas (1.25 c.) that I cooked in the pressure cooker.
Pureed the diced tomatoes and added about 1/2 a small can of paste (I like it thick).
Added a clove of garlic.
Increased the cumin and coriander to 1.5 tsp each because of the increased potato.
Sauteed the onion until browning in canola oil, then added hot peppers, garlic, and ginger for a couple of minutes, then added the other ingredients.

It was yummy!! Definitely a keeper.

Cost breakdown:
2.5 c water (instead of broth): free
22 oz potatoes: 0.49
1.25 c. dried chickpeas: 0.65
1 onion: 0.20
1 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes: 0.57
1 clove garlic: 0.05
2 tsp. ginger: 0.10
cumin, coriander: 0.15
diced hot peppers: 0.20 (I used poblanos that I roasted last summer from the farm)
salt: 0.01
canola oil: 0.04
tomato paste: 0.12
Total: $2.63 for about 9 cups, or $0.29 per cup

wow that's cheap