Chickpea and Couscous Salad
Here’s a tasty and versatile salad that can be a main dish or a side dish.
It is adapted from a recipe in Bonnie Stern’s cookbook More Heart Smart Cooking and is one of my personal favorites. I’ve added the cucumber and radish and added a few more chickpeas to use up the second can! More Heart Smart Cooking is one in a series of cookbooks that was written in conjunction with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
Serves approx. 7-8
Here’s what you’ll need:
1 cup couscous
2 15 oz cans of chickpeas (or 1 19 oz can if you’re in Canada)
1 diced red bell pepper
1 diced orange bell pepper
1 cup of frozen corn
4 chopped green onions
4 diced radishes
1/2 cup diced cucumber
2 cups chopped cilantro
1 tsp sweet and hot thai sauce
1 tsp cumin
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp cider vinegar or rice vinegar
1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbsp olive oil
Begin by placing 1 cup of couscous in a bowl and add 1 cup of boiling water so that the water is covering the couscous. Cover and let sit for 15 minutes. (I usually just set a plate on top as a cover)
While the couscous is sitting, chop your bell peppers, green onions, cucumber, radishes and cilantro. Once the couscous is ready, fluff with a fork.
Place couscous, bell peppers, corn, green onion, cucumber, radish, chick peas and cilantro in a large bowl.
Mix well.
In a small bowl mix the dressing including sweet and hot thai sauce, cumin, honey, cider vinegar, lime juice, orange juice and olive oil. Today I didn't have any orange juice so I just doubled the lime juice and it turned out quite delicious. 🙂 So don't worry about mixing the ingredients up a little bit depending on what you have in the house.
Toss the dressing into the salad and serve!
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Curry Tofu
This is one of my favorite recipes! It has tons of flavor and is super-easy to make! It comes from one of my favorite restaurants. If you live in the Kansas City area and you haven’t been to The Eden Alley Cafe then you must go there. This will give you a little flavor as it is one of their recipes as shared in the cookbook Stir-Well to Heaven. I have adapted it slightly it to add a few more veggies.
Makes approx. 8 servings
Here are the ingredients you will need:
2 lbs of firm tofu
2 cups snap peas
5 tbsp sunflower oil
1/2 cup diced onion
2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp tumeric
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp garham masala
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cayenne
For veggie topping:
1/2 sweet red bell pepper, diced
1/2 sweet yellow bell pepper, diced
3/4 cup carrot, grated or very finely chopped
1 tbsp sunflower oil
1 tsp curry powder
Additional topping:
2 cups chopped tomatoes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Then start by cutting your tofu into cubes.
Place in a large bowl
Then add all the ingredients except for the tomatoes, peppers and carrots.
Mix well with your hands or carefully with a spoon so as not to break up the tofu cubes.
Spray a cookie sheet with non-stick spray and spread the tofu evenly. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
In a small bowl mix together peppers, carrots, sunflower oil and curry powder.
After tofu has cooked for 20 minutes remove from oven and spread veggie topping over the tofu. Cook for 10 more minutes.
After 10 minutes, remove from oven and spread tomatoes over the tofu. Bake for 10 more minutes.
Serve on a bed of brown rice.
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Spinach and Berry Salad
Tonight seemed like a perfect night for a Spinach salad! I picked up the ingredients on my lunch hour so I could come straight home from the gym and make it. However I forgot that I wanted to include goat cheese and nuts so I had to stop on the way home from the gym to pick them up.
You can imagine my disappointment when I read the ingredients of the only goat cheese they had in the store. It included rennet which is a non-vegetarian ingredient. I didn’t know this until recently, but many cheeses are not actually vegetarian because they are made with rennet. Animal rennet is made from the stomach of newborn calves, lambs and baby goats. It is used to speed coagulation. So you need to be careful when you buy cheese not to buy cheese with animal rennet. You should avoid cheese with rennet, animal rennet or enzymes listed in the ingredients. You can learn more at consumethisfirst. Trader Joe’s also provides a listing of their cheeses with this information clearly defined.
So I settled on macadamia nuts instead of the goat cheese. Then when I got home I Googled macadamia nuts and discovered they are high in fat and low in protein! So even though I Â made my salad with macadamia nuts I don’t recommend it. I suggest slivered almonds instead or some goat cheese without animal rennet.
Here are the ingredients you will need:
Freshly washed baby spinach
Sliced strawberries
Blueberries
Kiwi
Slivered almonds and/or crumbled goat cheese
Start by placing spinach in a large bowl
Add sliced strawberries and blueberries.
Add kiwi cut into small pieces and slivered almonds or goat cheese.
Toss and serve!
Veggie Yogi 