Baked Eggplant and Chickpea Nourish Bowl with Creamy Tahini Dressing

Your girl is trying her hardest to improve her food photography skills. I have zero background in photography so I spend hours trying to understand lighting and key food placement. There is so much love and effort that goes into my food because not only do I try my hardest to make a delicious recipe, but I also strive to perfect how the dish looks because since you guys can't taste a meal from just looking at a photo, then I have to ensure that your mouth at least waters just looking at it! I want to show you that the healthy foods I make are delicious.

No more eating bland, "healthy" food. We're eating YUMMY and NOURISHING healthy foods from now on. So, without further a do, I present to you my latest nourish bowl creation, "Baked Eggplant and Chickpea Nourish Bowl with Creamy Tahini Dressing". Whether you're a vegan or not, I highly recommend making this nourish bowl for either lunch or dinner. Makes for a great meal prep idea as well! So, let me show you how to make it!

Yields: 1

Portion: 1 bowl

Prep time: 15 minutes

Total time: 30 minutes

This recipe is dairy free, gluten free, and vegan.

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Ingredients:

2-3 handfuls of Tuscan kale

¼ cup of ready to eat chickpeas

¼ eggplant

Roasted tomatoes (I bought mine from the olive bar at Wegman's but you can make your own by simply sautéing tomatoes in olive oil, salt, black pepper, and 1 clove of minced garlic).

¼ cup of quinoa

1 celery stalk

4 baby bella mushrooms

Garnish with fresh finely diced parsley

Kosher salt

Black pepper, garlic powder, paprika sumac

Tahini

Extra virgin olive oil

½ lemon

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Instructions:

1. First, preheat your oven to 375. Next, make sure you have cooked quinoa and ready to eat chickpeas. You can use canned chickpeas or fresh ones that you already cooked.

2. Grab a serving bowl and add in your 2-3 handfuls of tuscan kale. Massage with a squeeze of lemon, 1 TBSP of olive oil, and a dash of salt.

3. Add on the quinoa and 4 roasted tomatoes. Now, finely dice a celery stalk and add it into the bowl.

4. Next, medium chop up your baby bella mushrooms. Grab an eggplant and slice ¼ of it into 4-5 rounds. Place the mushrooms, eggplant rounds, and chickpeas into a baking pan.

5. Drizzle on a generous amount of olive oil and season with kosher salt, black pepper, and garlic powder to your liking.

6. Next, sprinkle on paprika onto the chickpeas only. Make sure all the foods are evenly coated. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes max.

7. While it's baking, make the tahini dressing. In a small bowl add in 4 spoonfuls of tahini, and add water until its a very creamy consistency. Add ¼ TSP of salt and ¼ TSP of sumac. Squeeze ½ lemon and then whisk well.

8. Finely dice parsley to garnish.

9. Once the chickpeas, mushrooms, and eggplant are done, add them to the bowl. Drizzle on the tahini dressing you made, sprinkle on a dash of salt, garnish with fresh finely diced parsley, and mix! Enjoy!

I hope you love this recipe as much as I did, so if you do, please leave me a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! I always read through my suggestions and comments, so please let me know your thoughts. If you have any questions you can feel free to DM me here or through Instagram. Speaking of Instagram - please tag me in all of your creations! I love seeing how the recipes come out and seeing how talented you all are. Sending my love.

xoxo,

Jasmin D the RD