salad of the week...

Photo to follow... wasn't in the mood to get the camera out because my head is KILLING ME!
But... I was so pleased with the two salads I made this week that I wanted to post them (more for myself so I remember how to make them again).

First... let me preach about the bulk bins at the grocery store. If my po-dunk grocery has them, I'll bet you can find them too. These have various grains, dried beans, nuts and other assorted goodies for purchase by weight. What I love is that you can get a huge variety of stuff for a small amount of money. You're saving yourself the packaging cost, for one thing. In the past week I've purchased bulgur wheat, wheatberries, millet, lentils, pumpkin seeds... all kind of treasures... all from the bulk bin. These two salads are partially courtesy of the bulk bins.

I made a beautiful bean salad... very simple... just two cups of thawed edamame, 1 can of black beans (rinsed to reduce sodium), 1 cup of red lentils (which actually turn out to be orange after they're cooked), 1 cup of diced red onion, 1 cup of cilantro, 1/2 cup of diced bell pepper, 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon olive oil. The colors are so deep... it's truly a work of art.

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of caprese salad... I made that fantastic chickpea caprese salad that I ate a thousand times this summer using chickpeas in place of the mozzarella (cheaper, fewer calories, heartier, holds up to the Georgia heat). WELL... this week I made a salad using 4 cups of cooked wheatberries*, 4 cups of diced tomatoes, 1 can of (rinsed) chickpeas, 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup of olive oil and a whole mess of fresh basil. It's so yummy!

*wheatberries are a grain... obviously wheat... that you can buy in the bulk bin. They take a long time to cook but ... leave it to the lazy girl to come up with an easy way to cook wheatberries. I just put 1 cup of wheatberries in my crockpot with 3 cups of water and cooked them on high for 4 hours. Perfect! They have a great texture... chewy... and you feel like you're really eating something!

As the weather turns and the fresh veggies are harder to come by, I've got to adapt my cooking to what's available (and affordable). The bulk bins, canned beans, frozen edamame... will get us thru the winter. I'm sure when the weather turns cool I'll be making more stews and soups and fewer salads. Either way, it's preparing stuff in advance that seems to work for me.

So my cooking is done for the week and the dirty dishes are in the dishwasher... now I just need to figure out a way to lose this headache...