Baked vegies with a difference & a truly awesome salad

Here are a couple of simple, yet really yummy, meals I have eaten in the last week.

This is a meal my special man made me to welcome me home from NZ. It's based on Carla's Stuffed Butternut Pumpkin. This is a pumpkin stuffed with rice, chickpeas, capsicum & onion. The only thing we would have done differently is bake the pumpkin for longer, because it was a little bit firm. But, overall, delicious & a fantastic idea - thanks Caral!

Rather than waste the pumpkin flesh that had been scooped out, S mixed it with the leftover chickpeas, & fried it up with some onions, then stuffed the remaining capsicum & baked it for about 30min. Yum.

This is one of my all-time favourite salads. It's stupidly simple - literally just mix a bunch of baby spinach with a tin of drained chickpeas & a couple of finely chopped tomatoes. Add a splash of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar & some salt & pepper. This was our main meal, so to fill it out a little I picked up a ciabatta & baked some croutons to throw in.

I love croutons. Seriously, how awesome are they?