Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Cold meals and a new cookbook


Yesterday was disgustingly hot, so Phil and I refused to turn on any heated appliances for lunch. Instead, I made this chickpea and beet salad. I love bean salads because they can be eaten by themselves, over lettuce, or even in a wrap or pita. We had ours over lettuce accompanied by a sandwich made with Nature's Soy Tof-Deli Slices (their website is down, so I'm not linking to it).

Chickpea and Beet Salad
Serves 3-4

Dressing:

  • 1 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
  • 1 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 2 Tbsp. vegetable broth
  • 1 Tbsp. whole grain mustard
  • 2 crushed garlic cloves
Salad:
  • 1 15-oz. can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
  • 2 green onions, minced
  • 1 small beet, peeled and diced
  • salt and pepper to taste

Whisk dressing ingredients together in a bowl until well combined. Add salad ingredients, mix well, and serve cold.


Phil picked up a book called The Ethical Gourmet by Jay Weinstein a few days ago, so we decided to make one of the dishes from it. We settled on the Cumin Laced Root Vegetable Couscous With Apricots. Delicious! I wish I could share the recipe! The key to this was the cumin and cinnamon... mmm. Plus it made a huge amount. It also took me 2 hours to make in a 95 degree room, but no matter. It was worth it.

We served it with kale sauteed with garlic and pan fried tofu.

2 comments:

SueWho said...

incredible! I wish I lived down the street from you so that I could come over often and enjoy yours and Phils glorious cooking!

zebeckras said...

I'm always too nervous to buy beets, because I have very few recipes to use them in and I hate letting vegetables rot. (I am getting MUCH better at using them before they rot, but I still constantly lose half a batch of celery or scallions or the like.) I actually made a cake last week that was supposed to have beet puree supplementing it, and I left that out because I didn't want to buy like six beets when I only needed to use 2 tbsp of puree. For cryin' out loud. :P That salad looks good, though, and I LOVE chickpeas. Once again, I think, more than Dan who kind of suffers with my meal plan and learns to love things. (I made about four or five nights' worth of eggplant dishes this month before he told me he didn't used to like it but is warming up to it now. Oops. SAY SOMETHING NEXT TIME)