Sunday in the kitchen

I'm feeling a bit hungover this morning. My head feels slightly headachy, my brain a bit foggy. My stomach is slightly nauseous. If I had been drinking wine the night before, I would have blamed it on that. But I wasn't. This particular Sunday morning I'm suffering from the cumulative affects of having consumed too much sugar. Jellybeans, chocolate, rich, decadent desserts. Yeah, that pretty much sums up my diet to this point in the weekend. And we still have two more Easter dinners to go. I need vegetables. My body is begging for something green, crunchy, and nutritious...like this chickpea salad. Oh yeah, I can't wait to dig into this at my next family dinner this afternoon! Of course I am also bringing along a dessert for the masses to enjoy, so I am bringing along the most delicious peanut butter cups from The Kind Diet cookbook. This recipe has become a popular one in this house - I substitute the peanut butter for soy nut butter, and the maple sugar for rice syrup (a nice, less sweet alternative, which is needed on this day!)

Chickpea Salad

1 can of chickpeas rinsed and drained

1/2 red onion 

1 orange pepper 

1 stalk of celery 

A handful of fresh herbs - I used mint for this particular salad.

Dressing

1/4 C olive oil

3 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 clove of garlic

1/2" piece of ginger grated

1 tsp organic sea seasoning

1 tbsp black sesame seeds

Put chickpeas in a bowl and add chopped up vegetables. In a small bowl, whisk together dressing ingredients and add to salad. Toss and refrigerate about an hour before serving. 

What's cooking in your kitchen this Easter Sunday?

Sunshine in the garden

My friends and I have a fun game we play when one of us travels to an exotic destination. The traveller must bring back a souvenir - but not just any tacky, tourist shop souvenir. A little creative thought must be used when souvenir hunting as said souvenir must cost the traveller nothing. While still being legal, I must add - no stealing, shoplifting, etc., etc. I was the first traveller charged with this task when G and I ran away to Montreal for a weekend. It added a fun new element to our travels - always searching in places we wouldn't otherwise see, like back alley construction garbage heaps where we stumbled upon this treasure that had been tossed aside:  

We weren't actually deliberately looking through garbage heaps for souvenirs - our admiration for a particulary building led us down the alley where this canvas was waiting for us to scoop it up and bring it home to Auntie Ness. Free, fun, and a story we will tell for the rest of our friendship!

Most recently, Auntie D travelled to Cuba. A sunny reminder of the delicious, poolside cocktails they enjoyed without me - but who's jealous?! While I originally had visions of adding them to my own cocktails this coming summer, my gardens were begging for a little Cuban sunshine! Out came the Sharpie and they now mark the rows of seeds we recently planted - keeping hope alive that the weather will actually get warm enough for them to grow!