Couscous and Chickpea Summer Salad

Made a delicious salad today. So delicious, in fact, I wolfed it down before I even remembered to take a picture to post here. So you'll just have to take my word for it: this salad is a happy, nourishing treat on a hot summer day. I ate a huge bowl and savored every bite.
This salad is a spin off of a recent post from Heidi Swanson's blog 101 Cookbooks, Cherry Tomato Couscous. I wanted to go for a bit less grain and more veggies. I also added some ingredients (seaweed, pine nuts, radish, green onion, alfalfa sprouts) to make it a nourishing meal in itself. As my teacher Montse Bradford insists, I macerated the tomatoes and cucumbers to make them a bit less yin and more yang. You don't need to do this, but the added saltiness (even though the vegetables get rinsed) tastes great, especially on a sweaty day like this one in Barcelona.

Couscous and Chickpea Summer Salad Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup cooked couscous (whole wheat, preferably)
1 cup cooked chickpeas
1 small cucumber, sliced paper-thin with a mandoline
1 small green onion, sliced paper-thin with a mandoline
a couple of radishes, thinly sliced
a handful cherry tomatoes
a handful alfalfa sprouts

dressing:
juice and zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
a pinch fleur de sel
garnish:
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
toasted nori seawead, cut into bits
1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts

First prepare the couscous. (Have the chickpeas already cooked from the day before.) Let couscous cool while you prepare the other ingredients. Slice cucumber and place in a colander with a teaspoon of salt. Let drain for 20 minutes or so. Rinse and pat dry. Slice tomatoes and sprinkle a few drops of ume plum vinegar. Let set for 20 minutes or so. Rinse. Slice radish and onion. Put couscous into a large bowl. Add sliced vegetables and chickpeas. Dress with lemon juice and zest, olive oil, and vinegar. Mix carefully. Add pine nuts, chopped parsley and seaweed. Serves 2 as main course or 4 as side.

Summer Super Salad

This is a super nutritious and colorful salad, good as a meal in itself for these warm summer days.

It has so many ingredients in it, that what I did was arrange it on a wooden platter according to taste: my husband doesn't like beets (too bad for him), and the children don't like the onion or mint, so I put them on separate sides of the platter so everyone would be happy.

Summer Super Salad Recipe
Ingredients:
1/2 head broccoli, cut into bite-sized florets
1/2 red onion, chopped thinly
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
a few bunches alfalfa sprouts
1 medium beet, diced
4 vine-ripened tomatoes, cut in half
1/2 cup brown rice
a few mint leaves

Dressing:
1 tablespoon tahini
1 teaspoon tamari
1 tablespoon rice syrup
1 teaspoon mustard
a few tablespoons hot water

Rince the rice and place in a small pan with 1 cup water and a pinch salt, and boil for 45 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water.

Place tomatoes on baking tray and bake on low heat for about one hour. Let cool and chop.

Cut the broccoli into bite-sized florets and boil for 3-4 minutes (make sure it stays crunchy, don't overcook!).

Combine all the ingredients nicely on a serving tray or plate, leaving the sesame seeds, mint and sprouts for the top.

Serve the dressing on the side.

Hummus Quinoa Finger Salad

As the weather gets warmer, I crave salad for lunch and dinner. After having spent the entire winter without barely touching lettuce, now I want it in every meal. The problem is, for me an overdose on lettuce means possibly leaving out important nutrients. Sometimes it's an effort to cut down on the greens and include other stuff as more than just toppings.
Here's a fresh, crunchy salad I made for lunch that is -literally- packed with protein from both the chick peas and quinoa. You can wrap the lettuce leaves into rolls and eat it with your hands (make sure you have a plate underneath, so you can munch any escaping grains later).
Make sure to use a fresh, crispy lettuce with large leaves.

Hummus Quinoa Finger Salad Recipe
Ingredients:
For the Hummus:
1 cup boiled chick peas
1 strip kombu (presoaked and boiled with the chick peas)
juice of 1 lemon
1 generous tablespoon tahini
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon ume plum paste
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
a few tablespoons water, for extra creaminess (optional)
1/2 shallot, chopped (optional)

1 cup cooked quinoa
fresh lettuce leaves
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
toasted sesame seeds

Prepare the hummus by blending all the ingredients. Gradually add the water until you reach the desired creaminess.
Wash lettuce leaves carefully so they won't break. Place dried leaves on a wooden platter. Spoon the quinoa onto the leaves, and then spoon the hummus onto the quinoa. Top with some slices of red onion.
Sprinkle with some toasted sesame seeds and a few drops of olive oil.
Serve with enzymatic crackers.