Spicy eggplant salad with chickpeas and sunflower seeds

I had an eggplant in my fridge all week.  I've been quietly fretting over it, because between you and me, I'm never quite sure how to cook eggplant. I fear mushy eggplant, soggy eggplant and bitter eggplant.  But I decided to nut up, use the food in the house rather than go outside/buy some more, and so I made this salad.  I have to confess that roasting the chickpeas was directly inspired by my lovely friend Jess who cooked me the most incredible meal the other night, including roast chickpeas in paprika.  This salad gets big fat ticks of approval for flavour, crunch, health, ease and use of oven for an extended period on a cold night.

Ingredients:

• 1 eggplant
• 1 tin chickpeas
• sunflower seeds
• garlic cloves (1 per person)
• tomatoes of some variety (I had fancy heirloom cherry ones!)
• baby spinach (or green leaves of your preference)
• leftover fetta you found in the fridge or any other white cheese of your preference
• juice of half a lemon
• olive oil
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 2 teaspoons cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder
• salt to taste

Set the oven to 180 C.  Prepare the eggplant by cutting into three fat slices, sprinkling with salt and covering with paper towels.  Then walk away.  Come back in 30 mins or so and wipe off all the salt and liquid that has oozed out of them.  Rinse the chickpeas and pick out any discoloured ones.

Then cut the eggplant into chunky cubes and throw in a bowl with the chickpeas.  Add the spices and toss through until evenly coated.  Place in a roasting pan withe garlic (skin on) and roast for about 40 mins until crunchy on the outside.  Five minutes before they're done, add a big handful of the sunflower seeds to the roasting pan to brown.

Prepare the rest of the salad by placing the spinach leaves on a plate with the tomatoes cut into small wedges.  Scatter the cheese around the plates too.  Squeeze the lemon juice over and drizzle a tiny bit more oil.

 
Then take out your roast vegetables and seeds and scatter them over everything.  Make sure each serve gets a piece of garlic.  When you eat the salad, smoosh the garlic out of its skin and smoosh it around over everything.   And, consume!