Recipe: Quick and Easy Rice Salad

I had quite some rice over from last night because my hand slipped and I ended up putting much more rice than intended in my rice cooker. Which turned out to be quite perfect for today's dinner as I didn't feel much like cooking so I threw together a quick rice salad with chickpeas. Any other grain will work as well, quinoa, cous cous, bulgur, even pasta. You could also substitute the chickpeas by any other kind of beans but I found the subtle taste to go well with this dish. I used a red bell pepper, onion and some mushrooms because that was what I had at hand but you can basically throw in any vegetable you like. I personally liked the crispness of the pepper and the onion and as I found out yesterday red bell peppers have a huge amount of vitamin C so I was happy I still had one lying around and I'll be making sure to eat them more often. I added some raisins because I liked to have something sweet in my salad as well to even out the onion and spicy dressing. I used mayo for the dressing today because it was the easiest but I will be better here next time and substitute for something vegan with less fat but I was lazy tonight. I realized later I still had some soy cream in the fridge I could have used... I didn't have lemon or lime juice at hand but next time I'll add a bit to the dressing (which may be completely different next time because I made this one up ad hoc and I might not remember exactly what I put in unless I come here to check.

Ingredients

Salad:
Rice
Chickpeas
Bell pepper
Onion
Mushrooms
Raisins

Dressing:
Mayo (or substitute)
Chili sauce
Curry powder
Cayenne pepper
Dried coriander leaves
Powdered mustard seeds
Agave syrup (or anything to sweeten it a bit)
Olive oil
White wine vinegar (rice wine vinegar would work as well)
Salt

Mix everything together to make the dressing and then mix it with the other ingredients and enjoy. Perfect summer time dinner which you can vary to your own likings.