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· Lightly dust a chicken breast with chickpea flour to give it a beautiful pan-seared crust with just the right hint of nuttiness and gorgeous color.
 
· Mix a pulse flour (lentil, pea or chickpea) with butter to make a flavorful roux to thicken a sauce or soup.
 
· Sauté chickpeas with heirloom tomatoes and pancetta and serve with basil chiffonade.
 
· Stuff squash, game hen or pheasant with red lentils, sausage, garlic and onion.
 
· Serve up a main course salad by topping a colorful array of cool lentils with shallots, olives and lemon zest. Move over chicken breast – they’re also a perfect protein option to the menu’s mixed green and goat cheese salad.
 
· Add lentils to meatloaf. Or, crush them to make a healthy breading.
 
· Offer hummus or seasoned and sauced lentils as a baked potato topping in place of sour cream.
 
· Puree cooked yellow split peas, seasoned with oregano and red wine vinegar and spread it on bread or thin into soup.
  
· Send the nutrition and flavor profile of your soups and stews through the roof by making pulses do double duty. Use chickpeas, lentils or split peas as a whole ingredient and puree some as part of the thickening agent.
 
· Keep that familiar crunch but add more healthy color to salads by replacing bread croutons with the delicious crispness of roasted peas and lentils.
 
· Baking soda – Some recipes call for baking soda to shorten the cooking process, especially if using hard water. Baking soda increases the absorption of water, but it also destroys thiamin, an
important B vitamin found in pulses. Baking soda may also make the texture of pulses too soft, an
undesired side effect.
 
 
Using baking soda to aid in cooking pulses is not recommended. If hard water is your only choice and you need to add baking soda, limit the amount to 1/8 teaspoon per 2 cups water.