Middle Eastern Chickpea and Rice Salad

This is another bean/grain based salad that we love - we eat a lot of "one dish meals" in our house because they always have great flavors, and at our house of course there's no "main dish" of meat, to be served with veggies or grains on the side.  This dish is one of our favorites!

This recipe is from VegWeb.com, by Kim Lutz.
http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=4564&catId=11

Middle Eastern Chickpea and Rice Salad
Serves 10

What You Need:

-1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
-Peel of 1 lemon, cut into strips
-2 tbsp. olive oil
-1 minced garlic clove
-2 red peppers, cut into wide strips
-3-1/2 cups cooked brown rice
-1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
-24 cherry tomatoes, halved
-1 cup pitted kalamata olives
-1 cucumber, peeled, deseeded, and diced
-2 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
-1/4 cup finely diced red onion

What You Do:

Preheat broiler. In a bowl, combine lemon juice, lemon peel, olive oil, and garlic. Set aside.

Place red peppers on baking sheet and broil until skin bubbles and starts to turn black. Remove peppers from broiler and place in a covered bowl for 5 minutes. Remove outer skin, and dice peppers.

In a large bowl, combine rice, beans, tomatoes, olives, cucumber, parsley, onion, and peppers and toss with lemon juice dressing.

Chef’s Tip: Depending on your preference, you can include the lemon peel in the salad or discard.