Perfect For When You’re Craving A Taste Of Spring

Spring is theoretically coming, and it has us craving veggies! Fresh peas, green beans, lettuce! We want soft spring breezes and the chance to work in our gardens! Although most of the vegetables in the recipe are typically ripe in late summer to early fall, we are craving vegetables, given how weird the weather has been lately. Boost up your vitamins and enjoy plenty of protein as well with this delicious and layered dish.

To start out, grab your peppers and tomatoes and dice them up into even pieces. Set those aside in a large bowl and grab your celery. Give your celery a rough chop and toss it into the bowl as well. 

If you can get fire-roasted corn for this recipe, that’s the best option for the flavor. If you can’t, or if you’re in the mood to be adventurous, you can always make your own ahead of time. If you purchased the corn, drain it of the liquid and set it aside. 

Next up, rinse and drain your 1 cup of cooked chickpeas; we don’t advise saving the aqua faba for this recipe, although you can use it in a variety of other recipes. 

Finally, we’re done with prepping the ingredients! Now grab your frying pan, set it over high heat, and melt 1 Tbsp of butter. Once it’s fully melted, toss in 1 Tbsp of minced garlic, and sear it. Then toss in your spinach, turning the heat down to let it wilt. Once the spinach has wilted, cover the pan and remove it from the heat. 

Next up, grab a deep, heavy-bottomed pot. Go ahead and toss in another Tbsp of butter and let it melt. Once it’s melted, add in your peppers, celery, and tomato. Once the peppers are soft, add the corn to the pot and heat thoroughly. When all you can smell is corn, you’ll know you’ve got it heated all the way.

Now add in your chickpeas, cover the pot, and allow the chickpeas to heat fully. Keep an eye on your pan, stirring occasionally as you might need to add more butter to keep everything from sticking. 

Take your can of chunk chicken, drain it, and break it up, then season it with garlic salt and fresh black pepper. Stir that into your veggie mixture, and then add the cover and allow it to warm while you make the dressing.

In a separate bowl, mix together the sour cream, corn syrup, lemon juice, red wine vinegar, cumin, salt, chili powder, smoked chipotle pepper, and smoked paprika, whisking thoroughly. 

You can add additional sour cream if you want to soften the spices or a very small quantity of water if you want to thin it out. 

To serve, take a bowl and layer in the spinach, the veggie & chicken mixture, and top with the dressing and avocado. 

We can see this recipe being taken in a number of different ways. You might bulk it up by layering in even more spinach or adding in bulgar wheat. You could go full tilt on the tomatoes and add in both roasted and sun-dried tomatoes. The two of them work together along with the fresh to bring in multiple different complex textures and flavors.  Alternately, you can layer this over short-grain rice or top it with croutons if you need to ensure carbs. Let us know what you come up with over on our Facebook page! 

When you’re done, you’ve got nothing to worry about when it comes to cleaning up, everything wipes out nice and easy, and your dishwasher shouldn’t have any trouble.  If it does give you trouble, though, of the “my dishwasher isn’t getting things clean anymore!” variety, we can help. At Appliance Rescue Service, we’ll work with you to set up an appointment that works with your schedule. We’ll send out one of our expert technicians to diagnose the problem and move forward with a plan that works for you. To solve your major appliance problems, give us a call at ((214) 599-0055) or head over to our contact page today.