Cooking w/ Trader Joe's: Edamame Salad

Ladies and Gentleman (uh, Adam, I think I can address you solely, lol), I have discovered a new love... Trader Joe's! I know I'm a little late, but in Hampton Roads we're always slightly behind on the trends (we got our first cupcake shop 2 years ago and our first Trader Joe's this year). Our only TJ's is in Va. Beach, which is about 30 minutes away from my house. Thankfully, I work at Just Cupcakes, whish is literally a stones throw from there! HURRAY! Anyway, you may remember me mentioning that I won a cookbook contest on warmolives.blogspot.com and she sent me Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's. She gives away one cookbook each month, and the winner of the cookbook is asked to please make one recipe from the book and post it on their blog w/in 30 days.

I decided to make the Green Garbanzo Salad, except I substituted edamame. Wednesday when I left work I decided to do some grocery shopping. I bought all the ingredients for the salad (which, btw, the book says all of the capitalized ingredients in the recipes can be found at TJ's... umm no! I couldn't find the frozen garbanzos, the frozen shelled edamame, or the super tiny mozz. balls). I decided to get a container of the fresh, ready-to-eat edamame, as well as a bag of frozen, ready-in-5-minutes edamame and see if it was worth the extra $1 to buy it pre-cooked and already shelled. Shelling the soy beans was super easy, so yes, I will be saving my $1 and buying the whole frozen pods from now on! As for the mozz. balls, I bought the regular sized marinated mozzarella and quartered them.

This salad was so delicious! Josh even loved it, and his favorite food in the world is cheeseburgers and loaded baked potatoes! Speaking of cheeseburgers... we ate this salad as a side dish. Wanna know what it was next to on our dinner plates? Cheesy Hashbrown Hamburger Helper! Yeah, we know how to do it up right in the 757! Lol ;) Anyway, I made a double batch of the salad, and between Josh and I it was gone in 2 days! It's safe to say this recipe is going to become a staple in the Baker household!

Oh yeah, did you notice I'm creating a new section for my blog? "Cooking w/ Trader Joe's!" Expect a LOT more posts with that subtitle! ;)

Green Garbanzo Salad (from Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's)
Serves 4

2 cups frozen Green Garbanzos or frozen shelled edamame
2 tsp salt to flavor boiling water
1/2 cup Perlini Super Tiny Fresh Mozzarella balls
1/4 cup diced red onion (I will reduce this next time, as it was more than enough for a DOUBLE batch.)
1/2 tsp minced garlic or jarred Crushed Garlic
1/4 cup Tuscan Italian Dressing (We barely used this much in a double batch. I'd say just add it to taste.)
Fresh basil, for garnish

1. Cook garbanzo beans in salted water. Drain.
2. Combine all vegetables in a large bowl. Pour vinaigrette over salad, add mozzarella balls, and toss gently.
3. Garnish with chopped fresh basil.