Spicy Honey Chickpea Bowl

with roasted eggplant, radishes, and red onion & a lemon parsley vinaigrette

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 in your inbox every Tuesday, and paid subscribers receive even more every Thursday! You can also try a week for free!

SOME IMPORTANT HOUSEKEEPING!

I am getting married in a couple of days! That means I will not be working/putting out a newsletter for a few weeks as we celebrate our marriage and jet off to our honeymoon in Portugal!

Good Mood Food will be on pause from May 16th to June 9th while I enjoy my wedding and honeymoon! As a paid subscriber, you will NOT be charged for that time. I repeat, you will NOT be charged for that time! Your subscription/billing will be paused until I return, and it will resume again once I am back in action!

If you have any questions, please do let me know. Again, thank you for the support and for sticking around during my brief hiatus!

CATCH UP!

I’m already getting so sick of hearing myself talking about how I’m getting married this week LOL, but I truly cannot think of another topic that’s on my mind right now.

It feels like that calm before the storm, the moment before it all takes off. Summer is around the corner, we have back to back weddings, trips, and visits, and it’s leaving me in a wonderful mood, but I also haven’t even had time to think about much of it beyond our impending nuptials.

I’m looking forward to a little break from work and to our vacation and to getting a DOG when we return. And I’m also looking forward to having other things to talk about and focus on ;)

RECIPE!

I’ve been getting a lot of requests for eggplant recently, which is funny because I had been craving it too, and I almost never buy it. We are all in sync, I suppose! In my mind, chickpeas and eggplants just belong together, and I didn’t just make that up. The combination is used in Moroccan cuisine in Tagine, in Greek cooking, and in many other Middle Eastern and Meditarranean foods.

This bowl is half salad, half warm bowl. If you want to add your own vegetables to the baking sheet, that’s absolutely an option. But if you haven’t tried roasting your radishes yet, I highly recommend it! Many people who don’t like radishes raw love them roasted, which makes sense because their bitter taste gets tempered. They’re much sweeter and milder this way!

I made my own spicy honey mixture here, but you can just use a simple hot honey as well!

Spicy Honey Chickpea Bowl

Ingredients (serves 2)

Bowl

• 1 (14 oz) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

• 1 tsp honey

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1/2 tsp paprika

• 1/4 tsp cayenne

• 1/4 tsp garlic powder

• 1/2 tsp onion powder

• 1 eggplant

• 1 small red onion, skin removed and cut into wedges

• 1 bunch radishes, quartered

• 4 cups arugula

Dressing

• 1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 2 cloves garlic

• 2 1/2 tbsp minced parsley

• Juice of 2 lemons

• 2 tsp red wine vinegar or white wine vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. In a medium bowl, mix together chickpeas, honey, olive oil, and spices together until chickpeas are evenly coated. Add to a foil-lined baking sheet.

2. Cut the eggplant in half lengthwise, and then score the eggplant, and sprinkle some salt over it along with a small drizzle of olive oil. Add to the baking sheet face down. Add the radishes and onion wedges to the baking dish, and toss in a little bit of olive oil. Bake for 20-30 minutes until chickpeas are crispy, and radishes and red onion are soft on the inside and just beginning to crisp up on the outside. Remove the chickpeas, radishes, and red onion from the oven, but let the eggplant cook for 15 minutes longer.

3. While the eggplant is finishing, prepare the dressing by mixing everything together in a small bowl. Add the arugula to your serving bowls, and top with the chickpeas, roasted radishes and onions, and the eggplant when it’s ready (I scoopped it out). Drizzle the dressing on top, and top with a little bit of crushed red pepper or aleppo pepper, if desired.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!

Last week, paid subscribers received a rare gem: a dessert recipe. No, it isn’t a giant avocado toast, but it’s a Vanilla Olive Oil Cake with Honey Matcha Cream Cheese Frosting! I am quite proud of how this one came out, so be sure to become a subscriber so you can make this beautiful baked good.

Vanilla Olive Oil Cake with Honey Matcha Cream Cheese Frosting

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