Kitchen Serendipity

Heather says:

One of the best things about summer is my stepdaughter gets to spend more than a quick visit. Aside from all the other positive things, it’s nice to have a willing sous chef. Last week a miscommunication on my part lead to an unexpected, but excellent new salad.

In addition to the fried chicken she requested, I was experimenting with two salads, a simple chickpea and cucumber salad and an interesting looking watermelon and tomato salad. I had assembled the chickpea and cucumber salad and it was marinating happily in the fridge.

I hate cutting watermelons, much like some of you despise cutting up a raw chicken, I dread cutting watermelons. Why? I don’t know, I never said it was rational. She willingly volunteered to dice some watermelon for the salad. I returned to discover the diced watermelon in the chickpea salad. I closed my eyes and gave it a taste.

It was fantastic. I added black olives, crumbled feta, and my husband and I made gluttons of ourselves taking third helpings.

In case you want the recipe, it was a cook by feel kind of salad, I was just experimenting to see if it was something I’d do in the future:

2 cups cooked chick peas
1 peeled, seeded, and sliced cucumber
Italian dressing (below)
crumbled feta
black olives
diced, seedless watermelon

The next time I make this I’ll hold off on adding the watermelon until after everything else has had time to marinate and get happy in the Italian dressing.

Italian dressing:

1 cup olive oil
1/4 cup vinegar – experiment and find your favorite (apple cider, wine, balsamic, etc)
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp grated Parmesan

Shake and serve.

It’s Friday and it’s hot, please take a moment and share some of your happy kitchen accidents.