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!

Dehydrated Shallots