Salads for summer

For me summer is all about messing around with salads and create some new things. I am feeling very virtuous this week as my diet has been a picture of health since last week when we ate out and drank far too much for my now delicate constitution. We have eaten in every night since then - mainly variations on a theme. Quinoa salads, rice salads.

There was a gorgeous chickpea salad one night from a British book I had called Good Food Magazine : 101 Veggie Dishes. I suggest buying this book if you can get hold of it - its not expensive and is full of fantastic things.

Indian Chickpea (Garbanzo bean) salad

6 tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves
2 red chillies, seeded and sliced
4tsp cumin seeds, lightly crushed
2 x 400g cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 tomatoes, halved, seeded and diced
zest and juice of a lemon

For the salad:
25g/1oz cilantro
half a cucumber cut in batons
1 medium red onion, sliced
4oz/100g baby spinach leaves

1) Fry the garlic, chillies, and cumin in 5 tbsp of the oil over a medium heat for 10 minutes taking care not to burn the garlic. Add chickpeas and heat through for 5 minutes.

2) Add tomatoes, lemon zest and juice. Season and set aside. Toss together the salad ingredients and divide between serving plates. Spoon chickpea over the top.

Serves 4.

This is not the exact recipe as it says to have it with naan bread too but obviously I left that part out and I layered some quinoa on top of the salad before spooning on the chickpeas.

Salads with a grain as a base are great for lunch the next day too, you just need to make a little extra. I always find it hard to know what to have for lunch as sandwiches are now off the menu.
Mostly I try to eat leftovers but if that is not an option, I have some of the following things:
- rice cakes with cheese and chutney
- I make a batch of say fritters, lentil burgers, that kind of thing and freeze. You can pull them out of the freezer in the morning and take to work with a salad.
- salads
- if it has to be fast food, chipotle does a great Vegetarian Burrito Bol - all the elements of a burrito without the wrap, also great because you can choose to leave out the sour cream and cheese!

My fantastic new blender arrived on Monday so smoothies are back on. Yeah! Stopped at the organic shop on the way home today to stock up on fruit. I now have a fridge full of Strawberries, blueberries, rasberries. I also got some bananas and a pineapple. Plenty for smoothies every day!