Last Tuesday night, I was really needing some R&R. Brad was home and I felt like cooking something light and delicious and watching TV. I went a little crazy buying vegetables at the g-store this week and it seemed like the perfect night to make larger than life salads. I knew Brad would want meat and I myself was dying to try roasted chickpeas a la Monica. I had tried them once before, but my impatience got the best of me and they were more like warm, slightly baked chickpeas. This time I was willing to wait the whole 20 minutes. No, I am not a five year old, I just play one on TV.
Like I have said before, I’m not technically a vegetarian or really even a pescatarian, although my diet tends to lean that way. I’ll eat meat when I want it. It just seems like I don’t really want it very much. I don’t shy away from it (I happily at my seared tuna last night which was accompanied by roasted vegetables and pancetta). I just eat what I want, you know? Brad loves meat. I could live without it most days. I really enjoy reading how a lot of vegetarian ladies happily cook meat for their man because they don’t want to deprive them of something they like. I have often ate meat in the past because I didn’t want to cook two meals and I wanted to give Brad what he was craving after a long week of hotel and restaurant food. I think I’m slowly getting the hang of this after being inspired by some of the blogs I stalk read. 🙂 This is an example of one of those meals.
Mine included a herb salad mix, topped with carrot ribbons, chopped cukes, chopped roasted red peppers (from a jar), mediterranean herb goat cheese, roasted chickpeas (seasoned with oregano, white pepper, and salt), and a homemade lemon tahini dressing. The dressing was about 2 Tbsp. lemon juice, 1 tsp. tahini, 1 tsp. olive oil, salt, and pepper.
Brad’s version included the same substituting chicken breast that had been sauteed in the same seasonings as my chickpeas.
The funniest part of this was Brad was enamored by the roasted chickpeas. I couldn’t keep him out of them. He had never had anything like it and said, and I quote, “I would eat these instead of popcorn at the movies”. He cracks me up.
I love introducing people to new healthy food alternatives and especially Brad since I care about his health and well-being as much or more than my own. It feels nice to make a positive impact in these little ways.
We enjoyed didn’t spit out our wine. This wine was not bad. This wine with the lemon dressing was very bad. To put it lightly, the flavors did not compliment each other. At first taste of the wine, after having a bite of salad, I thought, “This wine has gone very bad.” That’s right, not just bad, but very bad. Brad agreed.
I made the suggestion to not drink any wine until we were done with our salads and that did the trick. Apparently Toreldego and lemon are not the best of friends and shouldn’t be eaten together. Isn’t it funny how taste buds work?
On another note, this is my new fruit bowl. My old one was really a serving bowl from our Pottery Poverty Barn collection and was not big enough for my greater than average fruit needs. My brother Wess and his soon-to-be wife Jen gave me a Pier 1 gift card for Christmas last year and I had yet to buy it. I think I wandered around the store clueless for about 30 minutes before deciding that this was my best option. You can’t really see it but it has etchings on the outer part. The inside is painted gold with a green vine decoration. Very pretty.
Side note: Poverty Barn is not the knockoff cousin of Pottery Barn. Brad slipped up one day and called Pottery Barn, the Poverty Barn, and the name has stuck, although it still makes me giggle. 🙂