Pro-Soup Propaganda

I have to admit: this salad was not my idea. When I was helping Shana and Shawn with their craft show needs they both fed me very well while I was at their house. Lots of veggies, smoothies, and juices (and the occasional beer or gin & tonic ;o). One of the meals that stuck with me was a salad Shana made that was similar to this one. She remarked something about it like, "When you want to eat a taco, but know that isn't the best idea." Because I could eat tacos every day, but my waistline doesn't necessarily need that, I appreciated this salad idea even more!

I made it last night for the first time and Jonathan went WILD about it. He had worked a twelve hour day and I had the chickpeas roasting in the oven when he got home and some of the first words out of his mouth were, "It smells GOOD in here!" When we'd prepared the salads on our plates and were eating them he said, "This salad is so awesome. It's exactly what I needed after working a twelve hour day." He couldn't stop gushing about the salad. It made me feel awesome!

So, friends, I'm going to share this magical salad with you because it's just so darn good. Thank you to Shana and Shawn for sharing your yummy food with me and providing me with new ideas for meals!

I usually have dried chickpeas in the house, but didn't plan ahead for this salad, so I went ahead and bought a can of chickpeas. I rinsed them off and tossed them in a bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and a couple teaspoons of taco seasoning. Roast them in the oven at 400* for about 25-35 minutes and shake them about 15 minutes into the cooking so they roast evenly.

I made the most basic guac in the world by mashing up an avocado in the bowl that I mixed the chickpeas in, so that it would get a little bit of the taco seasoning residue. I drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil on top, added some salt to taste, and a little bit of red onion.

Meanwhile, I used some spring mix, some spinach, and some extra romaine for crunchie factor as the salad base. I sprinkled corn on it, a few tablespoons of salsa, crushed up seven tortilla chips or so (more crunchie factor - "crunchy" is a food group that I try to get into my diet daily ;o), topped it with about 1/4 cup of the chickpeas, half of the guac, and then a few tablespoons of Briannas Chipotle Cheddar salad dressing (which is surprisingly spicy, to me at least). Voila! Pretty simple, but, oh, so tasty!!

Does anyone else have any salad recipes or combos they'd like to share? We eat a lot of salads and veggies in the summer because it's too hot to cook, so I like having salad ideas so we're not making the same things all the time.

Enjoy!