Chickpea “Tuna” Salad

I have all but given up eating fish and seafood, including canned tuna, due to overfishing, mercury, polluted waters, micro-plastics in fish… etc. I have also never been a big fan of mayo, so when I used to make tuna salad I would opt for a mustard base.  Discovering chickpea “tuna” salad was a pleasant surprise because it functions really well as a salad or sandwich, just like tuna salad, but is vegan (my version) or vegetarian if you choose to add mayo.

The ingredients are:

• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed.
• 1/2 shallot or 1 TB red onion, minced
• 1 celery stalk, chopped
• 2 TB dijon mustard
• 2 TB olive oil
• ground pepper
• pinch of salt
• 1 TB Bragg nutritional yeast (optional)
• 2 TB chopped/crumbled nori (optional)
• pinch of paprika (optional)

One thing I read the first time I made this salad was to mash or squeeze the chickpeas with your hands. It feels a little weird to grab handfuls of legumes and squish them, but I think the general idea is it allows the entire salad to come together more and stay together a little the way a tuna salad would. You’re not looking to completely mash them, but give them a bit of a squeeze.

Add your ingredients to a bowl and mix. It’s that simple. Use mayo if you’d like. The addition of nutritional yeast imparts a little more flavor of umami, and the nori gives it a little “from the sea” taste. They’re optional, but especially good if you’re on a salt-free diet.

I put mine on some freshly baked sourdough with avocado for an open faced sandwich… aka “fancy toast.”

Savory Watermelon Summer Salad

THIS is what summer dreams are made of!

I love watermelon- grilled, juiced, frozen into ice cubes for cocktails- it’s versatile. A savory summer salad is a fun way to enjoy the quintessential summer melon.

For this recipe I used a small seedless watermelon, so it made enough for 5 or 6 side salads. Just serving two people? Cut back, or make the whole thing and eat it over a few days. I seasoned and “dressed” the watermelon separately and then assembled the salads individually so none of the greens were left soaking in the citrus juice. There are also a lot of possible substitutions: Don’t have arugula? Spinach could work. No shallot? Try a red onion. No idea what cotija cheese is? Try a chevre or feta cheese. It’s versatile, so play around and enjoy something new.

Ingredients

• One seedless watermelon
• juice of 2 limes
• 1/2 shallot, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• Arugula
• basil
• mint
• squash blossoms
• cotija cheese
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

Cut up the watermelon into bite sized cubes. Add the chopped shallot, squeeze lime juice on top, sprinkle paprika, and toss to coat. Portion into a bowl and add some arugula, basil, mint, slices of squash blossoms if you have them, and some cotija (or feta) cheese. Drizzle some high quality olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Massaged Kale Salad #1

On a recent culinary tour in Denver with my company Local Table Tours, I met a gal who was hysterically sassy, smart, and memorable. She has an interesting story of living in bumble f*%& Nebraska with her husband, who always requests the same kale salad. I don’t remember the ingredients she told me, and I do hope if she reads this post she emails me with them, but she had me cracking up about massaging the kale. Apparently, one can get tired of massaging kale, so she’s started just “slapping” it with olive oil and says hubby can’t tell the difference.

Anyway, it had me thinking all week how I’ve never “massaged” kale. I always boil, sautee, or bake those hearty greens. It was time to try giving them a nice massage.

I washed, de-veined, and chopped some dino kale, and added that with some minced spring garlic, olive oil, and sea salt to a bowl.

Pre-Massage

Then, you just “massage” it, or kneed it all together like bread dough for a few minutes.

Post-Massage

And let it sit. I left it for an hour or so before tossing it with garbanzo beans, tomato, celery, and avocado.

Add some crunch, protein, and avocado

This was SO easy, so delicious, and I’m SO silly for not making this sooner.

Dinner is served.

The Publican, Chicago

The Publican is a meat-centric James Beard Award Winning establishment in the meatpacking district of Chicago. Not necessarily a great choice for vegetarians, but absolutely worth a metro ride out to this neighborhood that still clings to it’s meatpacking past of warehouses, wide streets, and the stench of fish from a  loading dock floor that maybe wasn’t hosed down too well with bleach the day before.

This is a place that takes itself very seriously, and their attention to detail was impressive. The interior design, service, sourcing of product- every single thing was well done in what I could tell from our hour or so experience sitting in a booth that resembles a hog’s pen, with a chest-high door shutting us in and all. Pig paintings decorate the walls, and they have their own butcher shop across the street: Publican Quality Meats. We definitely weren’t in Boulder…

Like all great places nowadays, local farms are highlighted on their menu so you know exactly where that Little Gem Salad is coming from.

We started off with beverages, of course. (Sean and I can be a couple of one trick ponies)

I tried a cider, and he went for a flight of rosé. When the flight arrived, I asked our server to please place it down for a photo before unstacking the unpretentious wine glasses. For me, this presentation was another nice touch. The Publican has beer glasses to match every beer, but wine, on the other hand, not so much. Rocks glasses for wine, totally rocks.

Not being incredibly hungry, we went with a cheese board and a Werp Farms Little Gem Salad. We had just eaten a Werp Farms Little Gem Salad at the Green Zebra the night before, so we decided to compare…

You can’t even compare the two salads. The Publican fills a plate with Little Gem lettuce, fennel, radish, buttermilk dressing, and fried pig ears (which we got on the side).  Green Zebra, unfortunately, skimped out on the little gem lettuce and essentially mis-labeled their dish. But anyway, back to this amazing salad. I had never had pig ears and he insisted I try them, so we got a pile of thinly sliced, fried ears on the side rather than in the salad.

I didn’t like them at all. Sean swore they were amazing, but the flavor wasn’t something I really wanted to linger in my mouth. I’m just not too adventurous about eating animals, that’s all.

But cheese, on the other hand… I could eat cheese all day. Especially when presented like this-

I really wasn’t on my game this particular day after my first night in a new city, where we were up before dawn to fly at 6 am, and learned they have a 4am last call at some bars, so I’ll admit to having no idea what cheeses and accouterments we enjoyed. But, it doesn’t really matter because The Publican is a place that frequently features different cheeses, etc., so whatever you enjoy on your cheese board will be completely different from my mid-July experience. Just know it will be good. Really good. Amazing, I dare say. Go now, Go often.

The Publican

837 W Fulton Market

312.733.9555