simple chickpea salad... OR mmm, that was fast and tasty!

Sometimes I'm amazed at how long it takes me to prepare a seemingly simple supper, and I'm even more amazed at how messy my kitchen gets and how many dirty dishes I make in the process.

Dinner tonight was the opposite. I started making dinner at about 5:50. Here we are at 6:30, and everything is prepared, eaten and 100% cleaned up. Feels good.

I started by rinsing and starting to cook some quinoa.

Then I cut a garden-fresh zucchini into wedges (lengthwise), drizzled some olive oil, salt and pepper on it and threw it on a medium-high grill.

While those things were cooking, I went to work on Molly of Orangette's Chickpea Salad with Lemon and Parmesan. I even happened to have half a lemon sitting in my fridge!

By the time I had the chickpeas rinsed and the parmesan grated, the zucchini was ready to be turned. By the time I had the chickpeas tossed with the olive oil, lemon juice, salt and parmesan, the zucchini was ready to come off the grill. I spread it out on a plate, squeezed the rest of the lemon over it, followed by a generous grating of parmesan. Then I shoved it to the side of the plate, mounded the now-cooked quinoa onto the plate (but not before tossing the quinoa with some s&p), and then piled the zucchini on top.

Dinner was the chickpea salad served beside, on top of, or mixed in with the quinoa and zucchini. There was just enough left over for it to be all tossed together for one of us to have for lunch tomorrow.

Do try out the Chickpea salad, either alone or with fast/easy accompaniments like this. It would make a perfect lunch for a harried mother of a newborn (am I projecting into my future? Yes!) with some crusty bread and maybe served over some spinach.

[I don't have a picture of dinner, so the picture is HH and Callie enjoying some post-work sun and margarita in the BEAUTIFUL evening weather. HH is off for a boys' poker night, so I'm going to make me a virgin margarita and go back out to enjoy the weather!]