Love & Good Stuff

Got a pickle lover in the house? We sure do. Its next to impossible to keep a jar in the fridge once its opened, and these Quick Pickled Carrots have been a regular in our house for the last few weeks. Crunchy, salty, and tangy, they make an excellent snack on their own or a nice accompaniment for meals of all kinds.

We love throwing them in sandwiches or wraps, or adding them to bowls such as bibimbap or even our Korean BBQ Tofu Bowls.

This recipe truly takes no more than 10 minutes of your time, and the pickled carrots can hold up well in the fridge for at least a couple of weeks (if they last that long). I like to make the pickles about a day before I am going to use them, but if you are in a hurry you could make them a couple of hours before – the carrots will just be crisper and less ‘briney’.

We use very little sugar in this recipe as we prefer our pickles on the salty side, but if you prefer a sweeter taste feel free to add more sugar.

This recipe makes 1 500 ml mason jar container, but you can easily scale this recipe to make a bigger batch if you wish.

Ingredients for Quick Pickled Carrots:

• 1/2 lb carrots
• white vinegar
• salt
• sugar

How to make Quick Pickled Carrots

1. Prepare your carrots by peeling and cutting into matchstick sized pieces. I like to cut mine as tall as the container will be storing them in. The thiner the thickness of the carrot pieces, the easier it is for the carrot to pickle quickly. Place the carrot pieces inside of a wide mouthed mason jar.
2. mix the boiling water, vinegar, salt and sugar together and stir until the salt and sugar dissolve.
3. Pour the vinegar mixture into the mason jar until the carrots are covered. Close the mason jar and cool on the counter before storing in your fridge.

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Quick Pickled Carrots

Quick and easy refrigerator pickled carrots

Course Snack

Cuisine Asian

Keyword Quick Pickled Carrots

Prep Time 10 minutes

chilling and cooling 2 hours

Total Time 10 minutes

Servings 1 jar

Calories 117 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb carrots
• 1/2 cup white vinegar
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp sugar

Instructions

1. Cut the carrot and daikon into matchstick sized pieces about as tall as the neck of your mason jar, and put them inside it.

2. In medium sized bowl mix together the remaining ingredients. Stir until the salt and sugar have disolved.

3. Pour the pickling mixture into the mason jar and close it. Allow to cool on the counter then store in the fridge

Eggplant is one of our favourite vegetables, and we are always looking to add more eggplant recipes to our collection.

Our Chickpea Salad with Grilled Eggplant is a quick and easy recipe full of fresh mediterranean flavours and its a great way to get more eggplant goodness into your life. It is SO easy to make, and has relatively few ingredients, making it perfect for a weeknight meal. The chickpea salad holds up well in the fridge and can be made ahead of time making it a great dish for activities like camping or boating where you want to eat great food, but spend as little time as possible cooking at your destination.

If you are not familiar with Ajvar, it is a red pepper based condiment that is popular in the Balkans. We like to use it to save time when we would like to incorporate a red pepper flavour into a dish. If you can’t find it at your grocery store, you can simply substitute for two roasted red peppers that you have chopped.

This recipe uses an indoor grill to cook the eggplant, but feel free to use your BBQ!

Ingredients for Chickpea Salad with Grilled Eggplant

• Chickpeas
• Ajvar (or chopped roasted red peppers)
• Feta cheese
• Spanish Olives
• Eggplant
• Spinach
• Balsamic Vinegar
• Tamari
• Garlic

Equipment:

• cast iron grill pan, indoor grill or BBQ

How to Make Chickpea Salad with Grilled Eggplant:

1. Mix together the chickpeas, Ajvar, crumbled feta and olives to make the chickpea salad
2. Whisk together the dressing ingredients, brush a little on the eggplant slices and grill them
3. Place some spinach on a plate or bowl, top with grilled eggplant slices, then top with the chickpea salad. Drizzle with the remaining dressing and enjoy!

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5 from 4 votes

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Chickpea Salad with Grilled Eggplant

Mediterranean flavoured chickpeas with grilled eggplant served on a bed of fresh spinach

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mediterranean

Keyword chickpea salad, grilled eggplant

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 20 minutes

Servings 4

Calories 410 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

• 1 large eggplant cut into 1/4 inch slices
• 2 cups chickpeas
• 1/2 cup Ajvar (or 2 roasted red peppers, chopped)
• 1 cup feta cheese crumbled
• 1/2 cup Spanish olives or black olives
• 6 cups spinach

Dressing:

• 2 tbsp Olive Oil
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp Tamari
• 2 cloves garlic minced

Instructions

1. Combine the chickpeas, Avjar, feta cheese and olives to make the chickpea salad.

2. Heat a grill pan, or grill to medium high heat.  Mix together the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tamari, and minced garlic to make the dressing.

3. Brush both side of each slice of eggplant with the dressing and grill turning once.  Each side should cook for about 3-4 minutes.

4. Place the spinach on your plate or bowl, add the slices of grilled eggplant, then top with the chickpea salad mixture.  Drizzle any remaining dressing over each salad and enjoy!

Recipe Notes

1. The chickpea salad can be made ahead of time and keep in the fridge

Chickpea Fattoush Salad is full of tangy lemony Middle Eastern goodness and on the table in 15 minutes – you are going to love this fresh summer salad!

I’m pretty sure I mentioned my love of meal sized salads before when I shared my Gado Gado recipe, and my love for this Chickpea Fattoush Salad with Chickpeas is just as large.

Fattoush salad is a Middle Eastern bread salad made with toasted bread, greens, and other vegetables. It’s usually eaten as a side or appetizer, but we wanted to bulk it up and make it a main meal, so we added chickpeas for protein. For greens we used a mixture of red leaf lettuce and arugula because that was what we had on hand, but feel free to use whatever greens you prefer.

This salad is absolutely perfect for summer: crisp lettuce, cool refreshing cucumber, full of bright beautiful colours and easy to make with ingredients you may already have at home, with the exception of sumac. If you don’t already have sumac in your pantry, don’t skip it – it is the highlight of this salad! It adds a slightly sour taste which plays very well with the zesty lemon juice, and really is the ingredient that makes this dish special, and something that you will want to make over and over again this summer.

Ingredients for Chickpea Fattoush Salad:

• Lettuce
• Chickpeas
• Pita bread
• Cucumber
• Radish
• Cherry tomatoes
• Olives
• Red onion
• Parsley
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice
• Garlic
• Sumac
• Cinnamon

How to Make Chickpea Fattoush Salad:

1. Heat your oven to 400℉. Cut the pita bread into bite sized strips and spread out on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven until crispy about 5 minutes or so depending on the freshness of the bread. Mine were already a few days old, so they toasted pretty quickly.
2. To make the salad dressing combine the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, sumac and cinnamon in a small jar. Shake to mix.
3. Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl with about 2/3 of the salad dressing. Toss well to combine and enjoy!

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If you have made this recipe, don’t forget to rate it below!

5 from 5 votes

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Fattoush Salad with Chickpeas

fattoush salad with chickpeas and a tangy lemon sumac dressing

Course Main Course

Cuisine Middle Eastern

Keyword chickpea salad, fattoush salad, middle eastern salad

Prep Time 15 minutes

Total Time 15 minutes

Servings 2

Calories 473 kcal

Author Courtney

Ingredients

For the salad:

• 4 cups mixed greens
• 1/2 cup chopped parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped mint
• 1/4 cup sliced olives
• 4 radish thinly sliced
• 1/2 pint cherry tomatoes quartered
• 1/4 red onion thinly sliced
• 1 whole wheat pita cut into strips and toasted
• 1/2 cucumber sliced and quartered
• 3/4 cup chickpeas

For the dressing:

• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 clove pressed garlic
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground sumac
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Instructions

1. Heat your oven to 400℉. Cut the pita bread into bite sized strips and spread out on a baking sheet. Bake in the oven until crispy about 5 minutes or so depending on the freshness of the bread. Mine were already a few days old, so they toasted pretty quickly.

2. To make the salad dressing combine the olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt, sumac and cinnamon in a small jar. Shake to mix.

3. Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl with about 2/3 of the salad dressing. Toss well to combine and enjoy!

Recipe Notes

This recipe does not use all the dressing - it should take about 2/3 of it to dress the salad.