There’s nothing like a new salad idea to make weekday lunches more exciting

Lunch salads can certainly get boring sometimes, but they’re the healthiest option on most days (depending on the dressing, of course). My cousin from San Francisco was just marveling at how well New York City lunch joints serve up salads — it’s like an art form. Walk around midtown Manhattan on a random weekday and you’ll see no shortage of cool, hip salad places.

Salads are a great canvas for a host of unique flavors. Sometimes flavor combinations hit me by complete accident — some of my concoctions don’t work at all, but now and then I make a pleasant discovery. Like this new salad I created. I usually make the same salad for lunch: mixed salad greens, tomatoes, cucumber, and bell pepper to which I add a few walnuts, a sprinkle of feta cheese, and half a cup of cannelini (white kidney) beans. I toss it with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and honey and finish with a heaping tablespoon of hummus on top. It’s just great, so satisfying and filling, especially with the hummus and cannelini beans, you won’t be hungry after an hour or two.

Today I realized I’m out of cannelini beans. A can of black eyed peas was staring at me from the shelf, so I wondered. Solution? I quickly made a dry black eyed peas curry in a small non-stick frying pan along with a bit of canola oil, some red onion, garlic, red chilli flakes, turmeric, and cumin powder, and freshly minced dill. It’s a side dish I often make for dinner that goes well with Indian flatbreads or alongside a more saucy curry, but I figured it might go well in my salad. Boy did it ever. Somehow the India-meets-Greece combination of cool, crisp vegetables, with the creamy smokiness of the hummus, juxtaposed the turmeric-dill-laced black eyed peas was a lovely summer medly of flavors. Even the feta and walnuts seemed to work. And the touch of liquid honey added just the right hint of sweetness to bring it all together. Who knew?

Salad with Curried Black Eyed Peas over mixed greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta, walnuts, hummus, with a balsamic-honey vinaigrette

Serves 1 for a lovely solitary lunch or dinner alone

Salad Ingredients

• Mixed salad greens, a couple of extra-large handfuls
• Grape tomatoes, a handful, each sliced in half
• Cucumber, one tiny Kirby works well, diced
• Bell pepper, one half sliced lengthwise
• Feta, a generous sprinkling
• A few walnuts, broken in half with your fingers
• Olive oil, a swish
• Balsamic vinegar, another swish
• Honey, two to three short squirts
• A big dollop of your favorite hummus

Curried Black Eyed Peas Ingredients

• 10 oz. can black eye peas, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 small red onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1/2 inch piece of ginger root, minced
• 1 teaspoon canola oil
• Pinch, red chilli flakes
• Pinch, turmeric
• Pinch, cumin powder
• Small handful of fresh dill, rinsed and finely minced
• Salt, to taste

Preparation

1. In a medium-sized salad bowl, assemble salad ingredients #1 through #6.

2. Prepare curried black eyed peas. In a small non-stick frying pan, heat canola oil and red chilli flakes on medium heat until the flakes begin to move. Add the red onion, garlic, and ginger, and saute until just golden and glassy, no longer. Add the drained black-eye beans and combine well to coat. Add turmeric, cumin, and salt to taste. Saute for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in fresh dill.

3. Return to salad bowl and add dressing ingredients (olive oil, balsamic vinegar and honey) #7 through #9 and toss gently to combine. Add half a cup of the curried black eyed peas and toss again. Plate your salad on a large dinner plate and finish with a big dollop of hummus.

I love the look of raw black eyed peas, pure cream with a speck of black in each middle…turned into a dry curried dish with fresh dill.

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