Chickpea and feta salad with babaganoush and croutons

 

OK could definitely do better with the pic, but it was tasty. Arizona's dish of the week .

The salad: plenty of chickpeas, cubed feta, cucumber, red onion, mint, parsley, lemon or lime, seasoning. 

The babaganoush: baked aubergine (cut in half first), mashed with cooked garlic (actually microwaved in the lemon juice), tahini, lemon juice, seasoning. 

The croutons: Yeah you need more croutons that that but all good. The chickpeas are carby too. 

Tasty schmasty. 

Braised silverbeet with chickpeas and fresh tomato

• Swiss chard (1 bunch)
• 60 ml olive oil
• 2 crushed garlic cloves
• 1tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp grated ginger
• 4 diced tomatoes
• 400g tin of chickpeas

Fry and bubble. Can add onion to this. The original says to discard the stems of the beet – that would be madness! Just leave enough cooking time. Yum. (You don't need the order things go in, do you.)

 Serve with rice.

Fennel, chickpea, parsley and green olive salad

• 2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and finely shaved
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 80ml olive oil
• 400g tin of chick peas
• 10 green olives , chopped a bit
• 2 tbs coarsely chopped parsley

Marinate the fennel in the liquids of ten minutes before adding the rest. Serve.

Greek 'Shepherd's' Salad with Feta

Don't know why this is particularly pastoral (except perhaps for the feta thing) but it's DAMN tasty, really recommend it with the Braised Chicken with Lemon and Honey (or indeed, just on its own - I could eat this till the sheep come home).

Combine: a tin of chickpeas, a good-size cucumber (non-seed variety), a decent chunk of feta, a bit of flat-leaf plasley (actually we fogot this, it was lovely without), 1 chopped green pepper, and a good handful of black olives. Dress them in a standard and pedestrian manner, and serve.

This is a truly excellent salad. It's so delicious and moreish you quite forget how healthy it is - which is, sickeningly healthy.

We had it with the Lemon and Honey chicken and it goes perfectly.