The other day someone asked me if I've been having any of those infamous pregnancy-induced food cravings. I said that no, other than the fact that I no longer hate food with a white hot burning passion, there wasn't anything in particular that I found myself absolutely needing to eat. Of course, I realized later that my answer was entirely dependent on my having forgotten about chickpeas. Which, by the way, are the best thing that modern agriculture has to offer. Perhaps you were previously unaware of this fact? Not to worry. I kind of was too. But then I got pregnant and threw up for four months and when I stopped I realized that chickpeas were the key to making everything right once more.
Mostly I've been making chickpea salads to eat with lettuce or wrapped up in a tortilla. I'm a big fan of tomato/vinaigrette/chickpea combinations, but I'm kind of waiting for the garden to start producing tomatoes before I go after those recipes in earnest. Today I did make a chickpea salad with a bit of tomato, but with more of a yogurt dressing and a few other things thrown in. It's another modified Heidi Swanson recipe, this time from this book. Have I mentioned that I love her cookbooks? Yeah, I thought that I had too.
I loved the look of her Chickpea Wraps recipe, but just like with the granola, I didn't have the ingredients for the actual recipe on hand, so I just kind of took the general concept and made changes to acommodate what I did have. It goes like this:
Chickpea Salad with Yogurt Lemon Dressing
(based on Heidi Swanson's Chickpea Wraps from Supernatural Everyday)
3 cups cooked chickpeas
2 to 3 chopped celery stalks, diced
2 tablespoons stoneground mustard
2/3 cup plain yogurt
1/2 to 1 teaspoon sea salt (adjust to taste)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
2 small tomatoes, chopped
2 teaspoon capers
mixed salad greens
Whisk together the yogurt, mustard, lemon juice and salt in a small bowl. Mix in the capers and then toss the dressing with the chickpeas, chopped tomatoes and diced celery. Scoop a generous portion of chickpea mixture onto a bed of fresh leafy greens and enjoy!
