Salad with Chickpeas, Couscous and Soft Boiled Egg

Hello, God, are you there? It's me, Salty Girl. And I'm really, really hot. Not like, go on with my bad self hot, but like sweaty, salty, filmy and swampy hot. I know I'm just a grain of salt down here, but I just wanted to remind you that it's only the first week of June.... and it's ONE HUNDRED DEGREES HERE IN DC. Thank you, that is all. 

Times like this call for a nice, clean, satisfying salad. Luckily, before going outside here felt like walking on the surface of the sun, there was a nice period of ark-necessitating weather. Hence, the lettuce in the garden is going bonkers. Bonkers, I tell you! And lettuce is a use or lose type of produce. I mean, what are you going to do, freeze it? Not likely. So my family is eating a lot of salad these days. 

This week we had a lovely salad with some colorful vegetables (and even some fruit).  I used arugula, red lettuce, and a few other types of lettuces.  In an effort to make eating salad for dinner less, um, emasculating, I topped each portion with warm chickpeas with onions, garlic and red pepper, some couscous, and a soft boiled egg. A lot of components, but very easy, and tasty.  It's no manwich, but it'll do the trick.

Salad with Chickpeas, Couscous and Soft Boiled Egg

Ingredients:

1/2 Granny Smith apple, thinly sliced

1/2 red pepper, thinly sliced into strips

1/2 red pepper, diced

1/2 white or yellow onion, diced 

1/8 red onion, thinly sliced

6-8 radishes, thinly sliced

10-15 ounces lettuce of your choice

1TB olive oil

3 cloves garlic, minced

salt and pepper

1/2 c water

1 c chickpeas, drained and rinsed

2 c prepared couscous

2 soft boiled eggs (recipe follows) 

Dijon vinaigrette dressing

Ingredients: 

1TB Dijon mustard

juice of 1/2 lemon

1 TB extra virgin olive oil

salt 

pepper 

Preparation:

In a small bowl, combine ingredients for Dijon vinaigrette dressing. Mix with a fork or whisk, set aside.

In a large bowl, place apple, red pepper strips, red onion, radishes, and lettuce.  Add dressing.  Toss to combine. Set aside. 

In a medium sized skillet, heat olive oil.  Add white or yellow onion dice, garlic, and red pepper dice. Saute over medium heat for about 7 minutes, until all ingredients are soft.  Add chickpeas to skillet, and saute for about a minute.  Then add about 1/4 cup water.  Stir to combine, and cover.  Cook over low-medium heat for about ten minutes. Check mixture periodically, and add more water if needed. Chickpeas should be slightly softened, and water cooked away when you serve them. 

To plate salad: put about 4 cups of salad mixture on each plate. Place 1 c of couscous, and 1/2 c chickpea mixture on top of salad. Top with a soft boiled egg. Serves 2. 

2 Soft boiled eggs:

Preparation: 

In a small saucepan, boil enough water to cover 2 eggs.  Add eggs to boiling water, taking care not to crack them. Use a large spoon to lower them into water if necessary.  Cook eggs in gently boiling water for 4 minutes. Remove using a large spoon, and run under cold water for a minute. Use a spoon to crack eggshell, and peel.  Serve immediately.