Chris from mele cotte is hosting her first event: Cooking to combat cancer.

I decided to prepare a healthy chick peas salad with orange and parsley.

Garbanzos are one of the main ingredient of Arabic cuisine, so this salad is my contribution to Meeta's Monthly Mingle Arabian Nights, too.

Chick peas are low in fat, and are a significant source of calcium. It is often used as an alternative protein product with vegetarians and vegans and is one of the plants with the highest amount of protein. Oranges are a good source of vitamin C as well as parsley.

Of course I did use dried chickpeas and not canned ones.

Chick peas salad with Orange and Parsley

300 g dried chick peas
1 ts salt
1 onion
1 bay leaf

Soak in cold water for 12 hours and then pressure-cook (with fresh water, salt, onion and bay leaf) for 20-25 minutes, drain. Remove onion and bay leaf. Mash 1/3 of chick peas

Dressing
1 tb mustard
5 tb white balsamico vinegar
4 tb olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic, mashed
salt, pepper

2 oranges, peeled quartered and sliced
4 tb parsley, chopped

Mix dressing with lukewarm chick peas. Chill at least 1 hour at room temperature. Before serving add oranges and parsley.

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Julia from A slice of cherry pie invites us to bake an Easter Cake.
No Easter without a Carrot-Cake. Last year I made Mini-Carrot-Muffins. For the event I changed a common carrot cake recipe. I replaced almond by coconut and cream by coconut cream. A successful and tasty change!

Just one thing: Next time I would grate the carrots finer in order to have a nicer marble effect.

Marble-Easter-Cake

200 g butter
200 g sugar
1 pinch of salt
4 eggs
rind of 1 lemon, grated
100 g shredded coconut
300 g flour
2 ts baking powder
1 dl canned coconut cream
250 g carrots, finely grated
1 tb lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180C.
Beat the butter, sugar, salt and lemon rind until they are light and fluffy.
Slowly add the eggs, beating well to incorporate each addition fully before adding more.
Fold in shredded coconut.
Sift the flour and baking powder together, then fold into the batter.
Pour half of the batter into a separate bowl.
Stir the coconut cream into one half of the batter, mixing well. In the other half stir carrots and lemon juice, mixing well.
Place first the coconut batter into the prepared pan, then cover with the carrot batter.
With a fork swirl marble cake batters gently to marbleize.
Bake for about 55 minutes. A skewer inserted into the center of the cake should come out clean.
Dust with icing sugar before serving.

This cake improves with age. Just like me ;-)

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