Peas and Pasta

The other day in Mycology class we were studying powdery mildews on hazelnut leaves, this naturally lead to a conversation about Nutella, which somehow ended up in my professor telling stories about  various Italian pasta dishes (my professor is Italian). He said chickpeas and pasta were a staple at his house growing up. This was a surprisingly new concept for me. In my head, I always called them garbanzo beans, which means I mentally lump them together with pinto or black beans, and something about beans and pasta together just never occurred to me before.  Joe (my prof.) said it's just like peas and pasta - chickpeas, fava beans, really anything in the pea family goes great with pasta, not to mention peas or beans are cheap for the amount of nutrients they contain. So I had to go home and try it.  I followed Joe's vague directions of pasta with lots of garlic, olive oil, and chickpeas, plus I added some onions, tomatoes, broccoli, and ground beef.  Joe was right, chickpeas and pasta are fabulous together.