Chickpea and beet salad - Dressed in Pink for Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to you all. If you read the title of this post and are wondering what kind of fashion disaster I am committing, rest assured. The pink here does not refer to the color of my attire, but my chickpea's costume or dress(ing). This weekend is always long awaited because it is a long time coming after the endless dreary winter, and denotes the beginning of summer to me. This day also reminds me that its been four years since I met a lot of my friends. Folks have moved on in various ways, most have crossed the big 3 mile marker and changed their tax statuses more than once. Time has also flung us over different corners of the globe, making it more difficult to plan any reunions. Which brings me to this quick and easy salad. Not that there is any connection here, just me reminiscing for a few minutes.

This is a pretty simple salad mostly thrown together out of things languishing in the fridge fast nearing extension. A bowl of boiled beets, a cup of boiled chickpeas, red pepper about to wilt, and son on...you get the idea. The dressing is simple - mostly splashed over everything in the pot, instead of any fancy emulsifying by whisks or blenders or in jars etc. I use a couple teaspoons of my favourite hot sauce and several dashes of Mrs.Dash Tomato and Basil. I truly love Mrs.Dash. I feel its copy 'Salt free, Falvour-full' does it full justice. I have tried a lot of these and they are sure to add some zing to all of your dishes without upping your sodium levels. I did not have any Mrs.Dash Lemon pepper blend on hand, otherwise I would have used it here.

Once everything is mixed together, it gets a uniform coating from the beet juice and its all cloaked in pink. Of course, there are the inevitable stains on my clothes too :o

This is my quick lunch as I continue reading old entries from NYtimes's Frugal Traveller blog/column which I stumbled upon today. I also keep looking at this pink salad and dream of SATC2, which sadly I haven't watched yet.

The recipe is as follows -

Ingredients -

1 can chickpeas or 1-2 cups boiled

2-3 boiled beets

one onion chopped

1/2 cup green peas

1 red pepper diced

Hot sauce to taste

2-3 tsp Mrs. Dash

splash of vinegar and EVOO

Method -

1) Assemble all ingredients in a bowl. Dice the red pepper and onion in bite sized pieces. Dice the beets in a medium dice so that they retain their shape. The more you cut them, the more 'juice' they will give away. Add half a cup of rinsed frozen peas for some green color. You can also add scallions, but I did not have any on hand.

2) Add the hot sauce, Mrs.Dash seasoning of choice and roughly one turn of the vingear and the extra virgin olive oil.

3) Season further with salt and pepper if desired.

4) Mix everything and refrigerate for 2-3 hours. As with any salad, the flavours will intensify after chilling and over time.

This can be eaten as a meal served over a bed of lettuce, or in a wrap if desired.