Sort of Greek salad with sardines

This was really good, a great summertime lunch! And healthy, too.

It's sort of a template that you can customize depending on what you have and what you like. While mine has canned sardines, you could use tuna. Or leave the fish out entirely.

I started with this recipe from Eating Well , and it might not be a bad idea for you to start there if you want to serve more than one person.

The original recipe didn't have any greens. I added some arugula since I had it on hand and I thought the bitter greens would be a good combination, and it was. It would probably be good with regular lettuce. Also, the original recipe had olives, but I don't like olives so I left them out.

Recipe serves 1:

Salad: arugula, lettuce, etc. tomatoes (I used 6 grape tomatoes, cut in half) cucumber, peeled and sliced (I used about 1/4 of a cucumber) thinly sliced red onion 1.5 oz. canned chickpeas (garbanzo beans) (1/4 cup? I didn't measure it by volume so that's a guess.) 1.0 oz. crumbled feta cheese 2.0 oz. sardines, crumbled (1/2 can)

Here are most of the ingredients:

I use Wild Planet sustainably caught wild sardines that are abnormally huge. Half a can is one sardine! I vacuum sealed and refrigerated the other one, which I'll probably use to make sardines, spinach, and rice , or maybe I'll make this again.

I peeled the chickpeas by placing them on half a kitchen towel and rubbing lightly; not hard enough to squish them, just enough to make the skins separate and then picked them out. This is not necessary, but I prefer it that way. Also, since I used only 1.5 oz. of a 15 oz. can of chickpeas, I used the rest to make hummus .

Dressing: juice of 1/2 lemon olive oil 1 small garlic clove, minced salt freshly ground pepper

I make the dressing in a small Pyrex glass container with a Rubbermaid lid which makes it easy to shake the dressing.

I like to make my salad in a big bowl, adding the dressing then tossing the salad so the dressing evenly disperses. I also added a little more salt and freshly ground pepper before tossing.

I'm pretty sure this recipe is gluten-free, soy-free and pescetarian. Omit the sardines and it's vegetarian. Omit the feta cheese and it's vegan, and it's probably still quite good. There is lactose in feta cheese, but relatively small amounts from goat milk, and some people with mild lactose intolerance may be able to handle small amounts of feta.