Greedy Guts Salad

This is the ultimate salad to fill you up. It is also nicer if you eat this as soon as you have cooked the courgette and pepper, so that it is still warm.

Serves 4

1 romaine lettuce (trimmed and chopped)
85g (3oz) of fresh watercress (washed)
8 cherry tomatoes (halved)
¼ cucumber (sliced and quartered)
4 spring onions (trimmed and chopped)
1 x 400g tin of chick peas (or 100g dried)
1 tablespoon of rapeseed oil
1 medium courgette (trimmed and sliced)
1 orange pepper
(cored, deseeded and sliced into rings)
1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil (or avocado oil)
1½ tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
5 teaspoons of tahini and 5 teaspoons of water
1 small clove of garlic (peeled and crushed)
1 tablespoon of pumpkin seeds
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1. If using tinned chick peas, drain them in a colander and rinse thoroughly with cold water and set aside.
2. If you are going to use dried peas, you will need less in weight as they expand in size as they rehydrate.
3. You will need to prepare 100g of dried peas per 400g tinned peas and soak them for the required time.
4. Follow the relevant instructions for cooking the chick peas from dried. Tinned are so easy!
5. In a large salad bowl, toss in the lettuce, watercress, tomatoes, cucumber, spring onions and chick peas.
6. In a griddle pan, add 1 tablespoon of oil and heat. Lay the courgette slices in the pan.
7. Fry on a medium heat for 2 minutes each side, without moving them, until both sides have golden stripes.
8. Remove and add to salad, then fry the pepper rings on both sides until cooked. Add these to the salad also.
9. In a salad dressing shaker, add the oil, lemon juice, tahini, water, garlic.
10. Shake well until mixed. Taste a bit of the dressing to see if you need to add more of something.
11. Drizzle the required amount of dressing over the salad and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.

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