curried chickpea salad

I try try try to cook something every week for this blog, but sometimes I am only able to cook at home once a week. The rest is all leftovers, dinners out, etc. So, if I try something and it fails.... I'm left with nothing to share. I'm resourceful, though. This last failed experiment left me with some perfectly good pitas, a can of chick peas, and some Greek yogurt. I decided to make a nice, simple salad. Simple as in... not really a recipe. But follow along, this is a great summer dish.

Cut a pita into wedges and toast them in the oven until they are crunchy.

Meanwhile drain the can of chickpeas, and heat them in a sauce pan, flavoring them with chopped garlic, chopped red onion, plenty of curry powder, some crushed red pepper, cumin, ginger... all your favorite curry spices. Add water as needed so they don't dry out... I cooked them for a good 10-15 minutes, making them quite soft.

Serve the chick peas over arugula that's been lightly dressed with olive oil, salt & pepper. Scatter some halved cherry tomatoes around. Put a nice dollop of Greek yogurt on the whole thing, and add the pita chips as croutons. I ate this salad 3 days in a row without tiring of it. I could go for one right now, in fact!

mini pizzas with prosciutto, tarragon & quail eggs

I found some quail eggs at an Asian grocery store, and I had to buy them. So tiny and cute!! I've always wanted to do something with quail eggs. I mean, check out these little toasts that Eric Ripert does, and tell me you are not in love with the adorableness that is quail eggs?!? But what was I gonna do with them? I had them in the fridge for awhile, and was determined to use the tonight.

I seem to be on a pizza kick this week, so I went with that momentum. Ever heard of putting eggs on your pizza? It's not weird... it's normal, and brilliant. Being that I am terrible at planning ahead, I never think to make dough for pizza, and have found that refrigerated dinner roll dough works well for little tiny pizzas in a pinch. Little tiny pizzas? Little tiny eggs? boom.


There is not really a recipe for this, per se, but I will walk you through the process. I stretched and rolled out the refrigerated dinner roll dough balls (frozen works, too... follow directions on thawing and rising and preheating the oven) on a surface coated with some olive oil. Once I had my flat rounds, I spread them with olive oil and grated fresh garlic.

Next I put on some fresh tarragon leaves and shredded Parmesan cheese. Then I took a slice of prosciutto, tore it in half length-wise, and formed it into a circle in the middle of the pizza. The idea is that the prosciutto forms a kind of nest for the egg. Bake this for about 6 minutes, until the crust is firm and starting to brown. Add a quail egg to the center of each pizza (it's helpful to crack each egg into a little bowl first instead of trying to crack the egg onto the pizza) and bake another 5-6 minutes until the egg white is set, but the yolk is still runny.