Chickpea Ramen Noodle Salad

When I first moved out on my own, I was, like so many other students, broke...all the time. I remember having money to pay my rent but only enough left over to eat rice cakes and yogourt...for a month! When I had a bit more money I added instant ramen noodles to my grocery list! lol My roommates and I became masters of 101 ways to eat them - raw, as per the package,  with frozen peas, with ketchup (don't judge!) and sometimes with hamburger and tomato sauce (gourmet!). 

Fast forward a couple of decades and you'll still see the occasional package of these noodles in my pantry. My 8 yr old son loves them! When we ran out of croutons the other night, he suggested we add them to our salad...they were actually pretty good! 

To make the dressing mix together 1/2 cup sherry vinegar, 1/2 cup maple syrup, 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 heaping tablespoon of mustard along with a dash of salt and pepper. Store in the fridge.

Ingredients

1/3 cup salted roasted almonds

1 package instant ramen noodles

1 cup chickpeas

1 handful basil

1/2 small red onions, diced

6 cups arugula or spinach, washed and dried

1 red pepper, diced
2 stalks celery, diced

Dressing
2-3 tbsp maple vinaigrette - just enough to lightly coat salad

Instructions

Toss everything except dressing in a large bowl.
Add dressing and toss again.

Mango Almond Smoothie

Here's a super easy, quick and delicious smoothie my 9 year old daughter made this morning.

Ingredients

2/3 cup mango
handful almonds
1/3 cup plain yogurt
water to cover
pomegranates as garnish (optional)

Instructions

Place all ingredients in Nutribullet and cover with water. Blend for 90 seconds or desired thickness is reached.

Homemade Almond Butter

Easy almond butter - one ingredient!

Who knew it was so easy to make almond butter? Not me, that's who!

We had a bag of almonds that tasted a bit stale to me so I was going to through them out...but it was a whole pound of nuts. Since I didn't want to waste them I decided to use them in my first attempt at making almond butter - if I totally screwed it up then no biggie since I was going to throw them out anyways.

I basically roasted them for twelve minutes in the oven. This actually made them taste much better!

I then threw them in my Nutribullet. If you don't have one a food processor will do the job - it just might take a bit longer or be a bit grainier than my results.

I didn't add anything else - no salt, no sugar, no nothing.

My husband says this almond butter is better than any type we have bought before! It's also creamier and doesn't seem to go as clumpy once in the fridge. It's delicious on apples, bread, yogourt, smoothies, oatmeal...well pretty much anything!

Ingredients

1 lb almonds (raw or roasted, skin on)

Instructions

1. If using raw almonds, toast them in a 350 degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes.
2. Cool.
3. Throw into food processor or Nutribullet.
4. Turn it on. It will quickly look like sand and you may think this is not gonna work. It will.
5. If you have to, stop it and stir or shake it. Turn on again. Repeat as needed.
6. Eventually (5-10 minutes) you will see it start to look more like almond butter. Keep going so it become really smooth. (another 3-5 minutes)
7. I was multitasking the day I made this so I turned off the Nutribullet for 10 minutes while I did other things and then put it on again to ensure it was as smooth as possible.

Makes about a cup of almond butter.
Yum!