Crab Salad w/ Corn and Chickpeas

Carrie — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:09:03 +0000

At hand: a can of Bumblebee canned crab, going spare.
Needed: a sandwich filling with versatility (since it was unlikely that we’d consume the entire can in one evening’s meal, between only my husband and me).
The solution:

This is another of those recipes that’s less “recipe” and more “procedure for combining.” Into a bowl containing the can of crab, drained, I put:

Corn, one ear’s worth, freshly removed from the cob
Chickpeas, one can’s worth, drained
Capers, about a tablespoon
Cilantro, fresh, about a quarter cup
Chopped roasted red peppers, miniature, about 4
Chopped pea shoots, about a cup’s worth

Thusly mixed, I dressed the bowl with about a tablespoon of good curry powder and three or four tablespoons’ worth of jalapeno mustard. Some extra kosher salt got added to taste after everything was gently folded together.

I put it onto flatbread, on a bed of fresh spinach. Delicious. Today, I added slices of fresh tomato from our farmers’ market. Even better!

Makes about six half-cup servings. Per serving: Fat: 1.2g; Carbohydrates: 17.4g; Calories: 118.0; Protein: 6.7g.

Chickpea Salad

Carrie — Thu, 21 May 2009 22:52:22 +0000

Sometimes you need an easy protein for a meal, and you don’t feel like futzing with meat. Canned beans are one of the simplest ways to do that. Ordinarily, I’m a fan of the dried bean, for convenience and simplicity, but they do take time to prepare, so if for whatever reason I don’t want to devote hours to that, the pantry is stocked with a few cans of beany happiness.

I love chickpeas. I love hummus, I love them roasted, and I love them in bean salad. As of tonight, I love them as the star of their own salad, backed up by capers and roasted red peppers.

The cast of characters: a can of chickpeas, capers, jarred roasted reds, olive oil, salt, lemon (for juice), and a really good parmesan cheese. (Eric would want me to point out that this parmesan is two years old, got from a wonderful Italian deli locally. Fabulous.)

I used the whole can of chickpeas, two tablespoons of capers, and about six of the little red peppers, chopped (they vary in size; the nutritional info here assumes about 90 grams of peppers). Make sure to drain and rinse those chickpeas and capers; it’s probably not a huge deal, but I don’t know what “disodium EDTA” is, and I don’t think the salad needs extra added.

To the veggies, add about a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, a half a tablespoon of olive oil, and a dash of salt.

Say cheese – to the tune of about a quarter cup.

Then gently stir to combine all the ingredients…and that’s it! You can serve it right away, or, as I did, pop it in the fridge so it gets nice and chilled first.

Serves 6. Per serving – Fat: 3.5g; Carbohydrates: 16.1g; Calories:116.4; Protein: 5.4g.

Happy Little Stove » chickpeas

Crab Salad w/ Corn and Chickpeas

Chickpea Salad