Chickpea Antipasto Salad

In the kitchen, there is the sound of a ticking clock. From the open sliding door on my right, the leaves rustling in the breeze. The high today is seventy-one degrees. The last time I could say that was probably early April, and it feels like a treat. 

We had no idea what to expect when we arrived in McCall. Boise is surrounded by golden dry hills, the city itself an sprawl of big box department stores. But the further north you go the more trees you find, and the grasses begin to turn green. As you coast down the road into McCall's center you spot Lake Payette, like a gem in the rough. 

Here, I'm going to be soaking up the cooler weather -- currently drinking orange cinnamon tea - but back home, I'm still defaulting to no-cook, no-bake, minimal effort meals, like this Chickpea Antipasto Salad. 

This dish is a bit like pasta salad, minus the pasta, and all you do is mix. That's right: skip the oven, skip the stove, and even skip dishes -- it's a one-bowl wonder. 

Antipasto pasta salad is a picnic classic, with olives, artichokes, sun dried tomatoes, and cheese. But I wanted to make a version that didn’t use pasta. Something gluten-free with more nutrients per bite. Chickpeas are the perfect option here — they have a starchy quality that makes them a good filler, though they are also filling, more so than pasta, and in a good way. So there you have it, a way to fill those pasta salad cravings when you don’t want to fill your stomach with pasta.

You can make this salad ahead of time and chill it. Served over a few fresh lettuce leaves, it makes for a great make-ahead lunch in the middle of summer! Or, put everything in a large serving dish and tote your chickpea antipasto salad along to a potluck.

Chickpea Antipasto Salad

Published August 23, 2018 by Caitlin Sherwood

Serves: 4-6   |    Active Time: 10 minutes

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Ingredients:

2 sixteen-ounce cans chickpeas, drained

1/4 cup red onion, minced

1 cup artichoke hearts, quartered and drained

1/2 cup sliced sun dried tomatoes in oil, drained

1/2 cup sliced kalamata olives, pitted and drained

1/3 cup pesto

1/4 cup fresh basil, minced

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/2 cup feta crumbles

Optional: serve over a bed of butterhead lettuce

Directions:

1. In a medium size mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and stir to combine.
2. Serve immediately, or make a day ahead of time, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
3. Optionally, serve over a bed of butterhead lettuce leaves.

Macedonia de Frutas (Chilean-Style Fruit Salad)

¿Quien Quiere Ser Millonario? (the Spanish version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) played on the little TV in the corner of the kitchen. My host mom stood at the counter, preparing ceviche, answering every trivia question before the multiple choice options were even displayed on the screen.  

Manzana. Pera. Naranja. (Apple. Pear. Orange.)

Tienes muchas paciencia, hija, you have so much patience chopping all of those fruits so small. I had just returned from a trip to Los Lagos region in Chile, where I, along with a heard of other students, had picked fresh oranges, visited a Mapuche village, and dined on food fresh from the Fagón. Dessert? The best damn fruit salad I had ever had.   

Fruit salad. Such a blah dish. It's the sort of dish your grandma served as a "healthy dessert" when you really just wanted a cookie (mine did at least). But this fruit salad. This fruit salad! You’d never see fruit salad the same way again. Served in a crystal goblet, it looked like something well beyond the fruit salad I knew. A far cry from the plastic container of pineapple, under ripe melon, and grapes you’d buy at an American grocery store. In Chile, fruit salad like this is called Macedonia De Fruta. 

The fruit was chopped so small, you could hardly tell what each bite contained. A hint of lemon. A bouquet of nature’s sweets. A medley of sorts. It must’ve had some effect on me, as the day I returned to my host families home, I volunteered to make the fruit salad for the asado (barbecue) happening that afternoon. I knew exactly what I was going to do.  

Slicing and dicing didn’t feel like patience. My mind was far away, the TV just a sound in the background. Chopping each piece of fruit was meditation. I could’ve zoned out for hours. 

Macedonia de Frutas (Chilean-Style Fruit Salad)

Published June 20, 2017 by Caitlin Sherwood

This fruit salad is chopped fine so you get a little bit of everything in each bite.

Serves: 4   |    Total Time: 20 minutes

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Ingredients:

• 1 nectarine 
• 1 banana
• 1 apple
• 1 pear 
• 2 kiwi
• 1 yellow mango 
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• Juice of 1/2 an orange 
• Sprig of mint 

Directions:

1. Chop fruit, removing pits and seeds as you go (remove peels from banana, mango, and kiwi), into 1/2 inch cubes. Place in bowl.
2. Sprinkle with lemon zest and squeeze orange juice over fruit. Toss to combine, and top with a spring of mint. Serve immediately or allow flavors to marinate together for 30 minutes, covered, in the fridge to prevent oxidization.

Simple Salmon Salad

At the ripe old age of 25, it seems I can't go a week sitting at an office desk with out walking away with some gripe about sitting all day, a grumble about having a stiff back, or whining about feeling tight. True story: I once went to Urgent Care because I was worried something in my back was seriously messed up 😳 Thankfully, they told me I probably just had a micro-tear in a muscle, and would be just fine. It's possible they were just being nice and trying to give me some credit, when they actually saw nothing wrong. 🤔 (Well, that was embarrassing to admit! Moving right along.)

After that little stint, I realized I really just need to commit to treating my spine better. 

First, I set a reminder on my work computer to work at a standing desk every day at noon. It was a cute attempt, but with in two weeks the alert became nothing more than a pesky piece of dust on my screen, which I would wipe away with a single strike of my track pad. "I'll stand later, when I'm less busy" (yea right). 

So the next thing I did was promise myself I would go to yoga once a week for the next two months. That's it. Once a week. Not long ago, when I was much more dedicated to yoga as a practice, yoga once a week would have been laughable. But we all evolve, right? And as I found new activities, I found I did yoga less and less. Daily practice diminished to weekly and then weekly diminished to "I'll just do some yoga at home in the living room" which almost always turn into "Ohhemmmgee, I had no idea there were so many dust bunnies under the couch! I need to clean them. NOW." and, well, there goes yoga practice. 

But this time, I kept my promise to myself: once a week for two months. No less (and I'll admit it: no more). What a difference it makes! By week 4 I was already telling Oliver I could feel the difference. The deep, impossible to massage or stretch tightness that I was experience week-over-week? Gone. It feels miraculous but it was really just a commitment. 

By week 5 I was really struggling to convince myself to go. By week 6 I was convinced I might go twice in one week. This is week 7, and we'll just have to see what happens. When my 8 week stint is up, I'm going to try hard to keep up my once-a-week pace going. If a skip a week here or there it's ok, I'll just tell myself to jump back on the train. 

Do you practice yoga? What does it do for you? What keeps you committed?

If you like this recipe, you might also like my tuna power salad recipe! 

Simple Salmon Salad

Paleo, Primal, Grain-Free    |   Caitlin Sherwood    

I prefer salmon salad over tuna salad, as it has more flavor.

Serves: 2   |    Total Time: 10 active minutes

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Ingredients:

• 1 six-ounce can of salmon
• 3 tablespoons mayo OR greek yogurt
• 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
• 1 stalk celery, chopped into small pieces
• 1 tablespoons minced onion
• 1 dash granulated garlic
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Optional: sprinkle of dried oregano or 1 tablespoon minced parsley
• To serve: salad greens, cucumber, tomato, avocado, etc.

Directions:

1. Put salmon, mayo/yogurt, mustard, celery, onion, granulated garlic, and a sprinkle of salt and pepper in a bowl, and mash with a fork until everything is combined. Add optional oregano or parsley at this time, and stir in.
2. Serve salmon salad over bed of greens with your favorite salad add ons: cucumber, tomato, avocado, etc.