Just Ate: ‘Mediterranean’ Chickpeas with Sun-Dried Tomato Dressing

I just had quite a fun Brooklyn weekend. I stuck close to home and visited some local sites, made a ton of good food with friends, continued my hunt for the perfect neighborhood bar, and managed a six mile run. I say ‘managed’ because a weekend of nights out is not exactly conducive to a Sunday morning long run, but I made it nonetheless. It wasn’t the best run of my life, but it wasn’t the worst. Although it was the worst in quite a while. Totally worth it.

First, some food!

This dish is a take on one of my all-time favorite meals at one of my all-time favorite restaurants, Cornucopia in Dublin. The rainy weather we’ve been having has been giving me hunger/memory pangs for their food, so last night I pulled out my Cornucopia cookbook. I had to venture out into the rain for an eggplant, but, once again, totally worth it.

The original recipe calls for either feta or haloumi cheese, but I already had half a batch of tofu ricotta from Vegan with a Vengeance. (The other half went on a delicious pizza that my friend Julia from Victual Culture made on Friday.) So I threw that in there instead, and it definitely worked. The oregano from the tofu paired nicely with the sun-dried tomato dressing, all the flavors being, I suppose, ‘Mediterranean.’ (The writers of the cookbook joke about this vaguely named dish, saying that it was added to their menu back in the day when the two kinds of food in Ireland were ‘Irish food’ and ‘foreign food.’ They say if they were to rename it, it would become ‘chickpea salad with fusion influences from Greece, North Africa, and Italy,’ but that really won’t fit on their menu board.)

The major components of the dressing for this salad are sun-dried tomatoes, cumin, a red chili, and, of course, olive oil and lemon juice. Add this to chickpeas, creamy tofu ricotta, spinach, and roasted eggplant, and you’ve got a pretty delicious (and ridiculously easy) dish.

It’s also a very warming dish, which is nice in weather like this.

Before the weather turned nasty, though, I spent a lovely few hours at the Brooklyn Museum. Somehow, I had never made it to this museum, despite the fact that I pass it on my commute and while running almost every day. Right now they’ve got a Warhol exhibit…

… and an awesome Kiki Smith exhibit.

And I couldn’t help but take a picture with this work. She’s looking at me! The viewer has become the art/sideshow/viewed! Crazy!

All in all, I’d say it was a success of a weekend, torturous run included. Sometimes a tough run means you’re having fun in life, meeting people who make you want to stay up late and talk some more. I’m starting to figure out that this isn’t such a bad thing. It’s all about balance, right? That said, I think the next few days hold in store for me early bedtimes, plenty of water, and some restorative yoga. And leftover chickpea salad.