Kirsten's chickpea salad

This one came from Kirsten, in the fabulous shared house on Hythe Bridge Street - for a salad, it doesn't need a huge amount of fresh stuff in the fridge, which is very handy. Again, a pic-free post to get it up for the cooking-for-one meal plan. For now, you will have to imagine it: bright greens, whites, and blacks, with the subtle warmth of chickpeas.

Ingredients

• 1 tin of chickpeas, drained and well rinsed
• 1 cucumber, chopped into rough quarters / chunks
• 1 packet of Feta (200g) chopped into cubes
• 1 tin of pitted black olives (about 400g in brine), drained - though no reason you can't use green
• 1 small packet of rocket (about 70-80g)
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed (I sometimes leave this out if I'm teaching that evening)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• very generous splashes of olive oil

Mix all the chickpeas, cucumber, feta, olives, and rocket in a big bowl. In a jar or small tupperware, mix the crushed garlic, lemon juice, and a lavish amount of olive oil - about half a cup or more, and shake that well to mix it. You're doing that separately, so you only dress the bit of salad you're about to eat.

Usual salad-preservation rules apply: a big salad can last three days - four if you push it - if you treat it right. That's brilliant because for two or three days lunch is just whipping out Here's One I Made Earlier! This is how to treat it right:

• DON'T dress the salad! Only dress each portion as you eat it.
• Keep it sealed, in the fridge. I work from home so it lives in an appropriate sized clip-lock tupperware. If you're taking it to work, you can pop it in smaller tupperwares, or in jars with lids.
• If you're fussy about salad juice - the cucumber is the wettest ingredient. If you can't bear a bit of salad juice collecting on the third day, store that separately and drain & add it each day. Personally, I'm not fussed and that just sounds like too much schlepp.