Saturday, July 22, 2006

A picnic by the river dahling...

I'm a few weeks late with my tales of another gorgeous day, another excuse for the London bloggers to get together. Better late than never! This time it was the 2nd annual Henley Regatta dahling! Of course anytime you get a bunch of food lovers together the morsels are gonna be good. This, however, was my first time out with this lot for a public viewing. What a laugh! We commandeered a large strip of grass along the river, next to the footpath. As the crowds walked past you could hear comments like "Wow now that's a picnic.", "Real food- I haven't had that in so long." to my personal favourite, "Salmonella waiting to happen." I don't know if people were more perplexed by the amount of good food we had or the fact that we spent about 20 minutes taking pictures of it all.

We ate, we watched the rowing, we drank many a bottle of Pimms and generally had a good time. My contributions on the day were an easy to make Moroccan Chickpea Salad (recipe below) and some Bakewell Tarts for a bit of a Bakewell Tart Smackdown against Andrew and Jeanne (the link will take you to Jeanne's recap of the event).



For a 'row by row'- cheesy I know but I'm in a cheesy mood today- account of the dishes and the day check out everyone else's blogs:

Andrew - Spittoon Extra
Jeanne - Cook Sister
Johanna - The Passionate Cook
Claire - Lemon Soul
Jenni - Pertelote
June - Bread, Water, Salt, Oil
Shana - Owlfish















Moroccan Chickpea Salad
(Credit this this yummy salad goes to my pal Toral at The Urban Kitchen)
Makes a large bowlfull - serves 6

Ingredients:
For the salad:
1 x 400g can of chickpeas, drained
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and diced
2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
15g coriander, finely chopped
15g mint, finely chopped

For the dressing:
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 clove of garlic, crushed
5 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp. cumin seeds, toasted
1 tbsp. pomegranate molasses

For garnishes:
100g feta cheese, crumbled (optional)
coriander leaves

Add all the salad ingredients to a large bowl.
Add all the dressing ingredients to a small jar and shake to mix thoroughly.
Pour dressing over salad and garnish with crumbled feta cheese.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVED your salad! Definitely one of my favourites on the day. Light and refreshing, a perfect summer salad - and of course perfect for a picnic, as there's nothing that could go soggy!
I will try this at home very soon, thanks for sharing the recipe!
johanna

Clare said...

This chickpea salad is just the best I've ever had, and seeing as I'm addicted to the little beasts, that's quite something! I can't wait to try it out.

Jeanne said...

Hi Xochitl

Your salad was fab - I adore chickpeas & am always in the market for new ways to enjoy them! And I have very bad news for the Salmonella lady - Cecil took his chicken salad home with him (after it had stood open, sometimes in the sun) for a good 5 hours, refrigerated it overnight and served it to friends the next day - and nobody reported even a twinge... !!

Bonnie said...

Hi Xochitl!

Congrats for your mention in this month's Olive! Nice tortilla wrapping!

Xochitl said...

Hi Bonnie,

Thank you very much. I wasn't sure when it was coming out but I'm heading out to the shops now to get my obligatory ten copies for the family!

Xoch

Anonymous said...

What kind of a Mexican cook prefers a moorish chick pea salad instead of a Mexican Pico de gallo. You better start nming yourself "bloom"

Xochitl said...

Hola Alfonso,

I never said that this Mexican cook prefers a Moorish chickpea salad but if you like chickpeas it's a good salad. Pico de gallo- whether your version is the tomato condiment or fruit with chile powder version- is available floating around in this house! I'd be pure gringa if there wasn't!

Xochitl