Chickpea Chopped Salad

& i went out on a saturday night! (woa)

Hi! Welcome to “good mood food” from Kale Me Maybe’s Carina Wolff. If you’ve made it here and aren’t yet a subscriber, come join! You can expect recipes, musings, and faves in your inbox every Wednesday! Paid subscribers get even more on Fridays! Learn more about the paid tier of my newsletter here. You can also try a week for free!

CATCH UP!

I know it’s so cliche to say time is going by fast, but I feel like the months are whizzing by, and I have to constantly keep checking the calendar to tell what day it is. I’ll see a best friend and be like, “Wait, I haven’t seen you in a month!”

Over the weekend, Grant and I left our doggie Willow with my parents and had a little weekend to ourselves. We went out at night for the first time in a long time, and I ended up seeing a lot of people I went to high school with. Talk about time passing! It’s mind-boggling to look at someone you once spent every day with and realize you hadn’t spoken to them in over 10 years.

The day after our big night out (lol), we went to brunch, explored the Broad Museum, drove around Laurel Canyon and ate dinner at Pace, which was cute and vibey but a little overpriced.

My Oura ring has been telling me I’ve been sleeping better and am less stressed, so I’m glad to see some of the changes I’ve been making the last few months elicit results. I’ve kind of reached this point in our fertility journey where my baseline norm is just “not pregnant,” so much so that it’s basically an identity now. It sounds a little depressing, but it’s not as bad as it seems. It’s mostly meant I’ve been able to focus on other parts of life instead of fantasizing about something that may or may not happen soon.

THINGS I’M LOVING!

I just switched to the Ritual Prenatal because the other prenatal pack I was taking contained resveratrol, and I recently learned that the antioxidant can be bad for implantation. Research is mixed, but I figured, why risk it? So now I’m taking Ritual and supplementing with CoQ10. I got the citrus essence flavor, and I was very pleased — no aftertaste!

They gave me a code: you can get 25% off your first order with KALEMEMAYBE25.

I’m dropping this one again because we were having some technical difficulties last week, but all is good, now! I created a “Good Mood Food box” with some of my favorite food products that you can order through the Feed app! There’s my favorite lemon chili tinned tuna, salsa macha, preserved lemons, Gjusta overnight oats, my Ground Up nut butter, and the Rancho Gordo Royal Corona Beans I used in this week’s spicy miso brothy beans!

And you get $20 off using code CARINA20! This is a good discount code!! Don’t miss it!

This one’s for my fellow pilates and barre lovers. These are my favorite grip socks I’ve found that actually look cute. I love the neutral colors and that they look like normal crew socks that I can wear out with any shoe. And they’re cheap too! 3 pairs for $13.99.

RECIPE!

I’ve made quite a few chopped salads in my day, and I will be honest, this one is not revolutionary. Sometimes a classic is a classic for a reason.

This is a vegetarian chickpea chopped salad that contains roasted red peppers, pepperoncini, radicchio, cabbage, cucumbers, yellow onion, basil, and Parmesan cheese with a simple Italian dressing.

The use of the yellow onion was a happy accident; I wanted to use red onion in this salad, but mine was already sprouting, so I switched to yellow, and I liked it a lot, so I’m leaving it in the recipe!

RECIPE

Chickpea Chopped Salad

Ingredients (serves 2)

Salad

• 1 head of radicchio, chopped

• 2 cups shredded green cabbage

• 2 Persian cucumbers, chopped

• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced

• 1 (15 oz) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

• 1/2 cup sliced pepperoncini (from a jar)

• 1 cup thinly sliced roasted red peppers (from a jar)

• 1/4 cup thinly sliced basil

• 1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Dressing

• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

• 1/2 tsp honey

• 4 tbsp red wine vinegar

• 3 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tsp oregano

• 1/4 tsp salt

1. Add all salad ingredients to a large bowl.

2. Whisk dressing ingredients together in a small bowl until smooth. Then add to the salad, toss, and serve!

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

So it’s established, the 30-minute budget series will live on! I heard ya loud and clear — fast and cheap is what you want, and I’m here for it! Last week, paid subscribers received a recipe for a fried rice skillet!

Look, this picture isn’t the most enticing, but trust me on this one! It has carrots, yellow and green onions, cabbage, eggs, and a super easy spicy mayo topping! Just trust :)