Ingredients

2 cups cooked chickpeas (1 cup dried)

1 cup almond meal

1 cup toasted ground pepitas (pumpkin seeds)

1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

2/3 cup cooked red quinoa or brown rice

2/3 cup coarsely chopped kalamata olives

1 zucchini

1 carrot

1 large stalk celery

1 medium onion

1/2 red bell pepper

1 cup seasoned sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil

3 large crushed garlic cloves

2/3 cup packed fresh sweet basil

1 1/2 tsp. fresh thyme

1 1/2 tsp. fresh chopped rosemary

1 1/2 tsp. Costco’s 21 no salt herb spice seasoning

1 tsp. pepper

1 tsp. salt or to taste

1/2 cup picorino romano grated cheese

1/2 cup herbed and crumbled feta cheese

2 or 3 eggs

olive oil

Roasted Red Pepper Sauce - with additions from review poster on 9/28/14. Link is here:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/reviews/Roasted-Red-Pepper-Tomato-Sauce-107609

Preparation

Do ahead preliminary steps:

  1. Soak chickpeas overnight in filtered water - drain & rinse. Cook 1 1/2 hours in 2 to 3 cups of filtered water with 1 or 2 bay leaves on medium heat until water is nearly evaporated. Taste for tenderness. If done, cool & store in refrigerator in its broth until ready to use.

  2. Spread raw pepitas on a cookie sheet with a lip & roast in the oven at 375 degrees for 10 min. When cool, grind them in a food processor to a fine grind. Store in a glass jar or ziploc baggie in the refrigerator until ready to use.

  3. Soak quinoa overnight - drain & rinse 3 times. Set in pan on stove-top with 2 cups of water & cook about 15 min. Drain & leave in colander. Bring a small amount of water to a boil in the same pan & place the colander over the pan so that the bottom of the colander is not touching the water. Cover the colander with a dish towel & place pan lid over dish towel. Steam on low flame about 10 min. more. Remove pan from flame, cool & store in refrigerator until ready for use.

When ready, drain broth from chickpeas. Save broth for another dish. Grind in food processor until a fairly fine grind is achieved. It will be dry. Place in large mixing bowl. Grind sun-dried tomatoes, garlic & fresh sweet basil in food processor with whatever oil was in the tomatoes until thoroughly ground. Add to mixing bowl. Coarsely cut zucchini, carrot, celery, onion, & red bell pepper. Place in food processor pulse until you have fairly tiny pieces of veggies but not pulp-like. Add to mixing bowl. Add nuts, ground pepitas, chopped olives, spices, both cheeses & 2 eggs. Using your hands, thoroughly mix all ingredients together as if making meat loaf. Mixture will be wet. Dry is better than wet. Coat each loaf pan with olive oil & fill each with mixture. Bake covered with tinfoil at 375 degrees for about 1 hr. Freeze additional nutloafs uncooked. Baking frozen takes longer about 1 1/2 hrs.