Daniel Fast Recipe 1: Roasted Chickpea Taco Salad

Warning: This recipe is a little spicy!

I made this the other night for diner, and I didn't even really realize it was totally Daniel-Fast worthy. So let's get right to it:

Ingredients:

1 cup chickpeas (you can buy them in a can for super cheap at Aldi)

1 cup of black beans (again, Aldi is the greatest)

1 cup frozen corn

1 red pepper diced

2 tablespoons of lime juice

2 tablespoons of soy sauce

1 large tomato diced

1 jalapeno diced (and seeded if you want less heat)

2 tablespoons of cilantro

Some cumin or chili powder or garlic powder to taste

1 1/2 cups of cooked brown rice*

*NOTE: I could not find quinoa (which is what the original recipe called for) anywhere near Roseland, so I used brown rice instead.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Combine chickpeas, corn, beans, red pepper, seasonings, lime juice, and soy sauce in a bowl and stir
3. Roast the mixture on a baking sheet for 35-45 mins stirring occasionally
4. Bring 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil, then add rice. Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and let simmer until water is gone
5. Combine rice, tomato, jalapeno, cilantro, and the roasted mixture when all done. Toss with more lime juice and seasoning. Serve warm or at room temp.

Cool.... but how do you eat it? What do you eat it with?

I'm so glad you asked!!

I found a really neat idea on.... yes, pinterest:

The picture says it all.

Use the bottom side of a muffin tin and place small corn tortillas (again found these super cheap at Aldi) as seen above! I cooked these while the corn/chickpea mixture was roasting. I did have to warm the tortillas up a little bit before putting them on the muffin tin because otherwise they weren't soft enough and would fall apart. Just warm up a skillet on the stove, then place the tortilla on there for about 30 seconds, or until soft. Keep checking on them, but they need to stay in for a good 7 minutes at the least. I made about 4 of these little taco salad bowls for 2 eaters.

I also made some guacamole to go with! 

Ingredients:

2 ripe avocados

1/2 tomato

2 slices of white onion

2 slices of jalapeno

a bunch of garlic, salt, and pepper to taste 

(keep tasting it until you like the seasoning. Dennis will tell you, I tend to like a lot more pepper than most...)

1. Half the avocados and stick a knife in the pit to remove it. 

2. Scoop out the green with a spoon and put into a bowl. 

3. Mash!

4. Cut up the other veggies, and mash all together.

5. Season as desired.

Okay, How Was it?

We put the roasted chickpea salad into the tortilla bowls and topped it with guacamole and some salsa (again, Aldi makes fresh salsa and it's super good!). It was a bit hard to eat if you just picked it up and tired to bite into it, but if you ate the salad with a fork, then broke off the tortilla salad bowl to dip in the guac and salsa, it worked out pretty well.

I did the math, and if you do shop at Aldi, like I suggest, you can make this meal for under $4, and Dennis and I had a TON leftover (I'm taking it to work tomorrow for lunch). 

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! 

Adios!