Embarrassingly easy and amazing chickpea salad

Ive been living for salads recently, because its so absolutely hot at the moment. every night is a struggle to get to sleep with in my hot, sticky, muggy room and huge duvet. We're really not equipped to deal with this heat in this country - no air con, no fans... Also working out is a nightmare in this heat! Sweating buckets always makes me feel lethargic and I just want to pan out like a lizard on a rock, and not jump around swinging kettlebells. I also feel like I've put on a bit of weight over the last two weekends of excess and partying and some slight wagon-falling in terms of booze and food... so salads are really light and even when they aren't, they feel very virtuous. Here's a picture of the salad I've given the recipe for, with some leftover chilli from last night. The lime juice gives it a lovely Mexican flavour and it goes really well with it.





Warm, sweet, herby chickpea salad
ingredients:
2 cans chickpeas
4 green onions, thinly sliced
2 ears corn, cut from the cob, or 1 can of corn, grilled (I grill with a little coconut oil in a pan until golden)
1 punnet cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 packet chopped fresh basil
1 packet snipped fresh chives
1/4 tsp salt and lots of pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon honey/golden sugar/maple syrup/agave
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 limes, juiced and zested

directions:
In a large bowl, combine the chickpeas, onions, corn, tomatoes, basil and chives. Toss with lots salt and pepper. In a small saucepan, add the oil, vinegar, honey or sweetener, garlic, lime juice and zest. Heat over low heat and whisk until the mixture is warm and garlic cloves are sizzling a bit.


Pour the liquid over the chickpeas and and toss well to coat.Its actually lovely warm but you can refrigerate it and eat it cold if you prefer.

Travel broadens the mind...and palette...and the beauty of being alone

Yesterday, my OH and I were vegging on the couch watching Catfish, the MTV show where people are baited online by some randomer pretending to be someone completely different. (Its incredibly brilliant bad TV, and a surefire hangover cure). Anyway, the guy on the show was talking about the girl he fell in love with, and was describing nothing about her, but only what she did for him. "I love her because she makes me happy, she tells me she loves me, she's there for me, I dont feel lonely anymore, I have someone to care about, blah blah". We started a conversation about how when youre in love with someone, you really should be in love with them because of their unique qualities and not because you are lonely and want to fill the existential void in your life that sitting alone with only your own company late at night brings.

Being alone is something that always terrified me since I was a kid. I woke up in the middle of the night when I was about 5 or 6, and my mum and dad were not in the house. They had popped out to get a bottle of wine or something and both of them went for the spin. They were gone for about 5 minutes and when they came back, my face was pressed against the tear-stained glass and I was beside myself. I needed constant company as a baby, as a child, and right through to growing up. I never minded sharing a room. I liked the comfort of the sound of another human being breathing and being there at night.

When I was 21, I made a decision to travel on a round the world ticket by myself. More so than anything else, I felt it was time for me to learn to be by myself. I was going to have to live with myself for a very long time, and I may as well like my own company in the process. The day I left I was in a massive panic on the plane. What have I done? Where am I going? What the hell am I doing? But gradually, over time, I liked it. I was actually rarely alone on this journey, but I had the freedom to choose to be alone any time I liked. I could leave town at any moment and move on to the next adventure. I was in full control of every decision and I actually enjoyed not having to compromise, and the freedom that came with it. I spent a month in New Zealand where I barely spoke to a soul. I hiked endlessly, wrote diaries into the night, and did a lot of soul searching and a little bit of crying. But you know what? It cured me of the loneliness. I knew I never had to feel that way again. Because I was ok with my own company. Even if, at the end of my life, it was just me and a notebook and someplace to go walking in the woods, I'd be ok. And when you do fall in love after realising that youre ok with just being by yourself, it changes how you love someone. You welcome them into your life as a wonderful addition, rather than a plug for a hole you feel inside.

When I was travelling I learned to love lots of different new and different types of foods, spices, flavours and textures. Travel does wonderful things to broaden the palette. Fijian food was my favourite - with taro and cassava and kumala piled high on the plate, with coconut milk before and kava before and after, with its muddy, sedative drunkenness soothing you to sleep. Recently, I've been trying to experiment with different cuisines from around the world that I have never tried. My favourite over the last while has been Ethiopian food.

Ethiopian food is a smokey, thick, arid and densely flavoured cuisine (from what Ive tried). You gotta love your big, balls out flavours to love this. The curry I'll share with you now was my favourite - you can use chicken or meat, I used quorn chicken but equally you could use chickpeas or beans. I made these with injera (an adapted version of the Ethiopian injera: a sour pancake). I also made some ayib on the side, which was a simple mix of equal parts cottage cheese (curds dried), greek yoghurt and lemon juice. You definitely need yoghurt to cool it down. Dont scrimp on the spice - its seems like loads, and it is. Just follow the recipe.

Dont be scared of all the ingredients. Buy them from any asian store, and you WILL use them again and again. This recipe is absolutely gorgeous and so easy.

Doro Wat with InjeraIngredients:
3 lbs. 1 inch cubes of quorn chicken
2 large onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced (I used a pre-minced garlic from the asian store)
50g butter (I used this for a once-off, in future I'll be swapping this with coconut oil or something healthier! and less of it...)
1 cup red wine
2 cups water
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cardamom
2 Tb. garam masala
1/3 cup hot smoked paprika - this seems LOADS. Use it all.
1 Tb. crushed red pepper
2 tsp. fenugreek seeds
1 Tb. dried thyme
3 Tb. tomato paste
1 Tb. sugar (I used brown)
1 lime, juiced

For the Injera Recipe:

4 cups gram flour (you can use spelt or any other flour substitute)
2 Tb. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
4 cups club soda
1 cup white or rice vinegar
Oil for pan

Directions:

For the Doro Wat: Place all the ingredients, minus the lime juice, in a slow cooker or just a big crock pot/ceramic dish with lid and cover - I didnt have a lid so I used tinfoil. Cook for 2-3 hours. Then mash the quorn chicken to shreds with a potato masher (or the bottom of a ladle.) Stir in the lime juice and keep warm.

For the Injera Recipe: In a large bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda together. Whisk in the club soda until smooth. Then add the vinegar and whisk.

Heat a large frying pan over medium heat. Pour oil on a paper towel and wipe the skillet with the oiled paper towel.

Using a scoop, pour batter into the skillet creating a 6 inch circle. Carefully swirl the pan around to thin out the batter until it measures 8-9 inches across.

Cook for 1 minute, then using a large spatula, flip the Injera over and cook another minute. Remove from the skillet and stack on a plate.

Repeat with remaining batter. The Injera will seem slightly crisp in the pan, but will soften immediately when placed on the plate.

Once finished cooking the Injera. Cut the circles in half with a pizza cutter, roll into tubes and stack. Keep warm until ready to serve.

Serve the Doro Wat and Injera together, tearing piece of Injera and using it to pick up the Doro Wat.

YOM YOM YOM DORO WAT. 

Lunch, raw food, and Natasha's Living Foods

Back in 2007 I went to San Francisco with my OH, and it was right around the time I was getting a bit obsessed about raw foods. I was already a vegan and had been for years, and the raw food movement was really taking hold in the US. Raw vegans recognise that the heat in cooking food destroys a lot of the enzymes and nutrients in food. When you eat brocoli raw, for example, youre likely to get a much denser nutritional profile than if you boil it for an hour.

I read countless blogs and testimonials about raw food online and although I could never commit to being 100% raw (nor do I now believe it to be something that is healthy), it was something I SO would have done had I had a little more cash and access to more ingredients. When we went to SF, I was so excited that there were actual RAW FOOD RESTAURANTS. My poor better half was incredibly supportive and tagged his cheese-loving ass along with me on endless visits to Cafe Gratitude. I bought their un-cook-book and took it home, and some of the simple juices and salads are to DIE for, but the more involved stuff took endless hours of dehydrating, chopping, juicing, mincing and messing so I never got past the few simple recipes at the front, except for an aborted raw burger episode which cost us at least €60 in ingredients and was inedible. We had another raw restaurant which we visited and my OH reached the end of his tether when he found a caterpillar in his salad. We headed to Wendy's after that for a boca burger.

I came home from SF completely psyched about raw food, convinced I'd be making my own nut milk and dehydrating flax crackers. Aint nobody got time fo dat. I gradually drifted away from trying to eat all raw, which was probably a VERY GOOD THING because I can be super-faddy about food. I tend to get a wee bit obsessive, and back in college I was very disordered about how I eat and my weight, size etc. That's a whole other story, but I have to keep a close eye on my patterns and faddishness with food to make sure I dont slip into any bad habits again.

I was absolutely delighted to see Natasha's Living Foods which set up shop in 2009 in Ireland. I've been a huge fan of her produce ever since then. Her range is all raw, and really gorgeous. She worries about all the sprouting and dehydrating and juicing and messing, and you get the delicious end result with zero effort.

Today's lunch was Natasha's Onion and Kelp crackers with Basil and black pepper sprouted chickpea hummus, avocado, red onion, and smoked almonds.

The onion and kelp crackers are made with sprouted flax seeds, sunflower seeds, onion and kelp (the sea vegetable). They're really lovely and have a rich, almost cheese and onion crisp flavour (the cheesiness comes from nutritional yeast flakes, a gorgeous if unappetising sounding cheese substitute for vegans or people who want to reduce their dairy intake). The sprouted hummus doesn't taste anything like traditional hummus. There is a spicy tartness and a strong umami flavour to it that would not be to everyone's taste, but I adore.

I topped these crackers with avocado and red onion. If you are one of the people who thinks they do not like avocado, I have news for you. Add salt. Avocado LOVES salt, and a pinch of slat brings it to life (same goes for chilli, and a dash of EVOO). If you had something gorgeous like Himalayan smoked salt or Maldron salt then all the better. But a pinch of salt brings avocado to the next level in the way strawberries dance with a little sugar and cream.

Now I want strawberries and cream. WAH. Strawberries and 0% Greek yoghurt would make a pretty epic substitute though....

PS
Before I finish, its with a word of warning that I recommend trying out some raw vegan food. Please do not go down the rabbit hole of eating disorders that are raw food blogs and forums online. They are loaded with people with incredibly disordered eating and if, like me, you can get easily sucked into that world, then you are better off steering well clear...