Hi folks, I thought I’d share another salad from Plenty, I think I’m on a roll with this cookbook! It has so many great vegetarian dishes to try and this one did not disappoint. It was under the section “Pulse” which means Legumes, I’ve never heard of beans referred to as Pulse, silly me I thought pulse was a way to check your heart rate. But there it is.

I used canned chickpeas for this dish, but if you’re cooking them fresh from dried garbanzo beans I have a short how-to from my Kale Crunch Salad.

I liked the use of caraway seeds which was a little unique, I’ve only used caraway seeds in potato dishes and even that is somewhat recent for me. The original recipe uses swiss chard rather than spinach, the only difference in preparing is that you have to blanche the swiss chard prior to adding to the pan. Actually the recipe says if you're not using swiss chard to swap with a combination of spinach and arugula sprinkled with sumac or ground Persian lime, oh no, more exotic spices I don’t have! No worries just the spinach is fine. This can be eaten warm or at room temperature.

Chickpea Sauté with Greek Yogurt

8 cups fresh spinach (or swiss chard blanched and chopped)
1/3 cup olive oil, plus extra to finish
4 medium carrots, diced
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1 1/2 cups chickpeas
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1 tablespoon chopped mint
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Salt and pepper
1/2 cup Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add the carrots and caraway seeds and sauté for 5 minutes on medium heat. Add the spinach and chickpeas and cook for 6 more minutes until spinach is just wilted. Add the garlic, herbs, lemon juice, salt and pepper, toss to combine. Remove from stove and allow to cool a bit.

To serve mix together the yogurt, olive oil and a little salt and pepper. Pile the vegetables on a serving dish and spoon the yogurt on top. Drizzle with olive oil and a sprinkle of fresh ground pepper.