Chicky Chicky!

After the day of eating rich foods and heavy meals, the next day we weren't too keen on a big breakfast. Since I had some Turkish bread I thought I would make a simple hummus and chickpea salad. Short and sweet but high in calcium!

Hummus

Ingredients
1 can chickpeas or 400g chickpeas soaked overnight and cooked
1 or 2 garlic cloves- minced finely.
1 lemon- juiced.
1 tbsp tahini- this is seasame butter (like peanut butter but made with seasames).
1 tsp salt- adjust as required
1 tsp pepper- freshly ground

Method

1. In a mortar add the garlic and salt and crush until the mix is sort of glossy
2. Add lemon juice to the this mix.
3. Now add a teaspoon of tahini and mix well. Reapeat this until it is difficult to move your spoon in this mixture. It is really important that you mix well after adding the tahini otherwise it will come out bitter.
4. Grind the chickpeas a little. Grind them until you have the texture you require. Add the tahini mix to the chickpeas.
5. Mix it all up and add pepper. Taste and adjust seasonings. If it tastes bitter add a bit of lemon juice.

Chickpea Salad

Ingredients
1 can chickpeas or 400g chickpeas soaked overnight and cooked
1 carrot- finely chopped.
1 cucumber- finely chopped.
2 or 3 lettuce leaves- ripped into small bits.
1 lemon- juiced.
1 tsp salt- adjust as required
1 tsp pepper- freshly ground

Method

1. This is the easiest recipe. MIX AND SERVE. :)

Wheat Noodle Salad

Boy! What a week. As soon as I have started blogging, I have become so busy! Work is busy and home is busy! But I still have managed to cook and more importantly take photos. However it is not until Sunday night that I have managed to find some time to write up all that I have cooked.

If there is one vegetable that me and my husband would regard as our favourite (do people have favourite vegetables?) then it would have to be RED CAPSICUM. I don't know if it is the bright red colour or the sweet yet subtly hot flavour but we love it. It is also a very versatile vegetable. I can make Indian dishes and Western.

The best way to have red capsicum is roasted. And there are heaps of dishes you can make with roasted peppers. I am sure if Indira's JFI has peppers I will have no problems contributing (only prob would be picking which dish is best). Our latest favourite dish at the moment is Wheat Noodle Salad.

There is a Vegan collegue of mine, Albie, that gave me the recipe (he sourced it from somewhere). Him being the vegan and I the vegetarian we usually stick together at work lunches and order the same thing. The first time I had this dish was at his place in an all vegan barbeque. Usually when I go to a BBQ, I usually stick to salad due to fears of cross contamination but both me and Krishna were in heaven when we didn't have to ask 'Is this dish vegetarian?'

I hope that you all enjoy it as much as we have.

Wheat Noodle Salad

Ingredients
3 Red Capsicums
250g Dried Wheat Noodles
350g Snake Beans (any green bean will do. I usually use string beans if I have them or frozen string beans.) - steamed and chopped into bite sized pieces
1 small red onion - sliced
2 tbsp Toasted Seasame Seeds
1/2 cup parsley or coriander - coarsely chopped

Dressing Ingredients
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/3 peanut oil (I usually use a few table spoons rather than this. I guess use as much as it suits you)
1 tsp seasame oil
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar (you can find this in chinese grocery stores)
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar

Method

1. Roast the capsicums. To do this I just cut deseed the capsicums, quarter them and spray a bit of oil on them and put them in the grill.
2. Grill until they are black.
3. Take them out of the grill while they are still hot and put in a plastic bag or in a bowl and cling wrap it. This is to sweat them a bit.
4. Once they are cool (or well sweated) peel the skin off and cut into strips.
5. Add all ingredients for the dressing in a jar and shake well.
6. Meanwhile cook the noodles according the packet.
7. Gently toss all ingredients with the dressing.

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