Chickpea Orzo Salad

The following salad is really among my favourite go-to recipes. I don't make it as often as I'd like, as my husband is not that huge on cold salads, but when I do, it's a real winner. Not to mention that if you double it, it is great to bring to a potluck. This is not an original recipe, I must confess. My mom got it from a healthy recipe magazine of some kind, but sadly, I do not know which one.

Here's the recipe:


1 cup uncooked orzo
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
1 19once can chickpeas, drained
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon cold water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon bottled minced garlic

This recipe is really quick to make. While you're boiling the pasta in salted water, chop up all of the green onions, feta, and dill in whatever you'd like to mix your ingredients in. I also put the garlic, water, oil, lemon and salt into the container too... For the most part, I feel like making dressing in a separate dish is kind of a waste of a dirty dish... I've been using those glass containers with plastic lids for everything these days. I even threw out most of my plastic containers. 

Sadly, I tried to use my new pot with one of those deep colanders that you leave in the pot of water and then just slowly lift out when the pasta is done, but the orzo mostly just came sliding out of the wholes. I ended up draining the pasta in one of those really small... I can't think of the name. You know, the strainers that you'd use to rince off berries or whatever? 

Then, just mix in the orzo once it's cooled off for a few minutes. How easy is that? I really love this salad... I hope it inspires you to make it at home. It's healthy and delicious, and that's what the Mediterranean Diet is really all about. 

Have a great day!

French Baguette-ish

This is pretty key recipe to have if you want to be eating Mediterranean style. Remember when I said there was a lot of conflicting information about the diet, depending on different resources? Wellll... here's one: there are a bunch of websites out there claiming that people in the region eat mainly whole grains and low-fat dairy. Um, no. A variety of different grains, perhaps. Definitely not low-fat dairy. I think my Greek in-laws would be sick if I ever tried to feed them whole grain pasta. And no, they are not the exception. But I digress..

By the way, why would you make baguette when you can pick one up at the store? Well... some days I tend to agree. But I have 3 reasons:

1. It's fresher and therefore tastier.
2. It has absolutely no chemicals in it - most baguettes at our local grocery stores do tend to have preservatives in them.
3. It's wa-a-ay cheaper. We usually pay 3-4 dollars in Quebec for a baguette of a decent size. This recipe is certainly under 50 cents.

The recipe I use for French Baguette from this book here by Rob Wanless:

I don't feel like sesame seeds are part of French Baguette... but I know greeks put them on all of their breads! Hence the term "Baguette-ish."

For the Bread Machine (could easily be adapted for hand mixing):

Run the following ingredients on the dough cycle in this order - wet, dry, make a well in flour, yeast in well:

Ingredients:

1 C water
2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 T rye flour
2 t yeast
1 1/2 t quick-rise yeast

After a few minutes you get something like this:

But then it mixes quite a bit more, and actually is a very wet dough. This is normal, and Wanless actually suggests wetting your hands when you will form the dough later on. 

On a pretty heavily floured surface, form the dough into a ball, like this:

What I did next is role it into an oblong shape that was about 4-5" wide, and 1/2" or so thick.

Roll up the dough pretty tightly to make a long baguette shape, sort of like you would a jelly-roll. My ends sort of smushed together on their own, but make sure they seal up, pinching fingers at the ready!

And then I cut it in two, because there was no way that would fit on my baking sheet. They were sprinkled with water before they went on a cornmeal covered baking sheet until they doubled, in my case I preheated my oven after maybe a half an hour, making it about 40 minutes.

There, don't they look comfy underneath that dish towel?

Then, cut 3-4 diagonal 1/4" slits in each baguette so they don't suffocate in that oven! I brushed on egg wash (1 egg yolk + 2 tsp water) and sprinkled with LOTS of sesame seeds.

And this is how they came out of the oven. Wanless says bake on 500° F for 25-30 minutes with a pan of hot water underneath, until well cooked. Here's the thing. This is time number two I make this bread. The first time it came out black. Deliciously popcorn-like, but black. This time, I ended up pulling it out after 20 minutes. As you can see still dark, but not over-done.

Tonight, I enjoyed my bread with some pasta al'arrabiata and a nice glass of Little Penguin Merlot:

Ok, but seriously though, that piece of bread is huge. In reality, I ripped the baguette in half for the picture, but then I only ate half of the half... Let's get serious people, this is a blog about weight loss!