Chickpea Salad (a Clean Out Your Fridge kind of salad)

From Foodsies!

Oi! It's been a long time since i've posted. This is mostly due to me a) not cooking much and b) f-ing up what I do try and cook. Also, i've taken up regular (read: constant) bicycling, but my tubby body hasn't yet adjusted and so i'm too wiped to cook most evenings.
I get home from work, park the bike, and sort of collapse into a happy cold-water and endorphin-fueled haze on the sofa. Blissful, but not inclined to cook.

On the plus side, it's made me totally crave veggies and fruits and water. Yay? Such foods aren't generally too exciting to blog about (look, an apple!) but last night's dinner juuuust qualifies for a post.

After a ride around JP with Abigail last night, I was craving something veggieful and something cold (first really hot day of the year!). Seemed like a perfect time for a salad. !!! What !!! I know, me! Making a salad! Anyway, I picked my own mouth up off the floor and threw together the following Chickpea And Whatever Veggies You Have Salad, served on greens with some wild rice as a side.

Enjoy after the jump:


Chickpea and Whatever Veggies You Have Salad

Ingredients:

1 Can Chickpeas, strained and rinsed
2 TBSP Olive Oil
2 TBSP Red Wine Vinegar
1 TBSP Lemon Juice
Fresh Parsley and/or Dill to taste
Salt and Pepper to taste
Some combination of the following:
1 Red Onion
2 Tomatoes
3-4 Stalks Celery
1 Cucumber
2-3 Carrots
1-2 Red/Green/Orange/Yellow Pepper(s)
Anything Else You Think Would Taste Good In There

Instructions:

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Toss around. Chill for 30-60 minutes in the fridge.

Serve on a bed of lettuce/greens. For dinner I served it with some long grain and wild rice that i'd had hanging out in the pantry forever. Turned out to be a very tasty, healthy, and pretty dinner!

From Foodsies!

I used the leftovers for my lunch today - I took a whole wheat tortilla and spread it with some roasted red pepper hummus (made by Abigail, yummm) and then topped it with the chickpea salad and some of the leftover wild rice from last night's dinner. I wish i'd remembered to add in a few olives, but otherwise it was a great lunch.

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Tomato and Chickpea Curry

Oh. My. God. I have finally made a perfect curry dish for myself! It may not be perfect for anyone else, but eff 'em. It's an Indian spiced dish that fulfills my Indian food desires just as well as the best Indian restaurant in our neighborhood.

See, I like Indian food, but i'm fairly picky about it. So far, I can only ever find Indian food the way I like it at actual Indian restaurants. Anytime I try to cook it myself, it turns out... wrong. Just doesn't capture the right flavors. Doesn't make my mouth water in the same beautiful way.

But no more! I have conquered my personal Indian food mountain!

From Foodsies!

I think the key was to stop using recipes. Only I know what Indian food I like, so I should be the one to decide what goes in it. Seems obvious, but I guess I wasn't confident enough in my own cooking skillz til now. But last night I got a wild hair up my arse and decided to just go for it.



Kat's Tomato and Chickpea Curry

1 Can Chickpeas
1 Can Diced Tomatoes (I used fire-roasted cuz it's all I had)
1 Onion
3 Cloves Garlic
1 tsp Fresh ground ginger (or just throw in 1/2 tsp of ginger powder with the other spices)
2 Cups Water
1 tsp Cardamom
1 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Cumin
1/2 tsp Chili Powder
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Cloves (in powder form)
1/4 tsp Mustard Powder
2 Bay Leaves

Chop up your onion, press your garlic (or dice if you lack a press), grate your ginger.
Heat up a dime of canola oil in a large skillet over medium heat
When the skillet is hot, throw in the onion, garlic, and ginger.
Saute for about 5 minutes, until the onions get clear and soft and are browning.
When they start to stick a bit, pour in about 1/2 cup of water and stir it around.
Turn the heat way down to simmering.
Add your spices, minus the bay leaf, and stir. Should smell amazing.

Pour in your chickpeas and tomatoes. Stir around. Make sure it's simmering but not boiling. I suck at that, btw. I tend to go back and forth between boiling and doing nothing. But my meals still turn out well, so I guess it must even out in the end ;)

If you drained the chickpeas and tomatoes, add in a cup and a half of water. If you didn't drain them, but dumped them in with their water, then you will probably only need a cup of water. Basically you want everything to be mixing about in a wet stewyness.

Cover and let simmer for about 20 minutes.
Check on it. Stir. Sample. Are the chickpeas soft? Do you like the spice level? If you don't like the spice level, stir in some more spices.
If the chickpeas are not really soft, and the tomatoes are not all a-mush, then it will need to cook longer. If almost all the water is gone, add in another 1/2 cup.
Cover and let simmer another 20 minutes.
Check again. Stir. Sample. Spice level good? If not, hit it up with some more.
Are the chickpeas soft yet? Are the tomatoes a-mush? Either way, how is the water content? If it's all a big of a stewy mushy mess, then you should be in good shape.
You want it to be goopy and saucy to an extent, but you want it to go over rice without a ton of water draining through the rice to the bottom of your bowl, dig?
Only you can know when it's truly done. I like my chickpeas super mushy but I also like the mix to be fairly saucy.
Some people like their chickpeas harder and/or prefer a less runny curry.
You can really go wrong as long as it looks and tastes like something you want to eat on your rice.

Serve with rice (you did make some brown rice to go with this, right??). Eat.
Enjoy your tummy making love to itself. mmmm mmmm.
Wake up drooling and dreaming of curry.
Make more curry.
Repeat.

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