Quinoa Salad - Asian Style

Oh my, January has almost gone and we are rushing headlong into 2017.

I'm hoping for a healthier 2017, filled with amazing adventures, travel, new food combinations, weight loss (yes I am still trying), finding new things to try, taking more photographs, getting fitter!!! The list goes on. 

Fingers crossed, I will be launching my new look blog in 2017 which will have more features and lots of new recipes. So keep a look out!

My biggest hurdle for this year, apart from getting my new blog working, is to find ways to reduce calories, get high nutrition and still have enjoyable food.

What I want to reduce - apart from my waistline - is having too many 'trendy' ingredients that you use once and then hide in your pantry until you throw them out in a years time. Great food, great tastes, simple as......

It's summer here and we had a ridiculously early start to hot weather  - 41 degrees C on Christmas Day, and our Tour Down Under (cycle race) last week experienced temperatures in the 40's too. We have had hot, humid weather and more storms than ever before. 

Don't despair, I've got some great salads for you.

This week I am sharing one of my favourite salads. Low calorie, a healthy combination, high in protein and it tastes pretty damn good! 

In hot weather, this salad is fantastic, there's so little cooking.

Quinoa Salad - Asian Style

Ingredients - serves at least 6 as a side dish

1 cup Quinoa - I use red, but any colour will be fine
2 cups water
salt
1 cup  red cabbage shredded
1 cup shelled edamame
2 carrots shredded
1 zucchini shredded
1 red capsicum chopped
1/2 large continental cucumber diced
pinch salt and pepper


Sauce

1 spring onion finely sliced
1/2 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated
1 tablespoon sesame seeds
1/8 teaspoon chilli flakes
1/4 cup of Tamari/ soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar 
2 tablespoons of chopped coriander
2 tablespoons water - optional


Wash the Quinoa well and place into a medium saucepan with 2 cups of water and a pinch of salt. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer until all water has evaporated. This usually takes 10 - 15 minutes. Cool slightly.

While Quinoa is cooking prepared salad vegetables. I use a mandolin to cut cabbage, zucchini and carrot. Place in a bowl and mix well. Add chopped red capsicum and edamame beans and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Make the sauce by mixing all the ingredients together in a small bowl. Now if the sauce looks a little thick (depends if you go overboard with the coriander), then add 1 - 2 tablespoons water and mix well.

Once the Quinoa has cooled slightly, mix into the salad vegetables. Add the sauce and mix well. Sprinkle with a few chopped coriander leaves and slices of spring onion.

Serving suggestions


This salad can be used on its own or as a side dish. 

You could add some cooked tofu, omelet, or nuts. You can also substitute the Quinoa for brown rice or other grains you prefer.

Sweet Potato, Rice and Quinoa Salad

Fires, devastation, floods and now we have Santos Tour Down Under.

Adelaide is crazy at the moment and it wont stop until April. February and March are taken up with Adelaide Festival of Arts and the Fringe Festival. Oh, and did I mention Adelaide Writers Week?  And, they have kept day light saving well into April too!

How is one supposed to concentrate on food? I suppose when your tummy rumbles it's time to consider making a beeline for the kitchen to make something fast, easy but amazingly tasty and nutritious. No time for baking, pastry making or getting out the ice cream churner!

So here is a little tip; this whole salad will take you 30 minutes to make. It's something really tasty and nutritious and with any luck you will score some left overs for another day. It keeps perfectly well covered in the fridge for a couple of days. Serve with an 'Omelette aux fine herbes' (omelet with herbs) and you have a meal fit for a queen

Sweet Potato, Rice and Quinoa Salad

Ingredients

2 Sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic minced
1 cup of low GI brown rice
1/2 cup of Quinoa - I used mixed colours; white, black, red
1 onion finely chopped
2 teaspoon smoked paprika
2teaspoon chilli flakes
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
1 cup of stock or water
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 tablespoon chopped parsley

The rice takes the longest to cook, so once the rice is on, put in your sweet potato and start cooking your quinoa.

Cook rice in whichever way you normally do until it is cooked. I usually use a rice cooker and it takes around 20 -30 minutes. I add salt to the water prior to switching it on. This is the low GI rice I found in the supermarket.

Take an oven proof tray, cover with baking paper and add the chopped sweet potato. Give the potato an nice sprinkling of olive oil and 1 teaspoon chilli flakes, 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika and roast in a moderate oven 180º for 30 minutes or until it is cooked and browned on all sides. 

In a fry pad, add 1 teaspoon of oil and add the minced garlic and the onion. Allow to cook until soft and it is just beginning to turn brown around the edges. Add quinoa and stock or water and continue cooking for around 15 - 20 minutes until the quinoa is cooked and there is no stock left. I used Coles Tricolour Quinoa for extra colour, but you can use whichever you have available.

Take the potato out of the oven. By now your rice should be cooked and your quinoa should be ready to serve. It is just a matter of putting everything together now.

Add the quinoa and onion mixture to the rice in a nice bowl and stir together. Add 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika, the red wine vinegar and 1 teaspoon of chilli flakes. Mix together. Top with the roasted sweet potato a handful of chopped parsley and chives. Check seasoning and add salt and pepper to suit. Serve.

A New Year - Time for Salads

Happy New Year to you all. A big THANK YOU, to everyone that has been so supportive over the last 12 months especially my family and friends and the many visitors and comments from people I do not know. 

Winners of the Birthday Celebration Cook Book Give Away are: -

Diana from Geelong, Victoria - the 'Organic Book' is on its way and Malcolm from Plympton, South Australia - just posted 'Spain,' to you - enjoy! Thanks to all of you that entered, it was fun selecting winners!

I hope you had a great Christmas, Hanukkah, festive holiday or just plain absence from work. Are you enjoying the sunny summer in the southern hemisphere or skiing, log fires and Gluhwein in the north? Either way I hope you have safe and happy holidays and a great 2015!

I spent a lovely Christmas with my family in the mountains near Sydney - it was hot, rainy, foggy and cold ,all in one day! Here's a few photos showing how lovely the area is. We stayed at this place, nice, comfortable and plenty of room to spread out.

 Foggy start to the morning, Blue Mountains

Echo Point, Katoomba at dawn

Dawn, Echo Point, Katoomba 

Sunlight on a Banksia

Planning 2015 things to do! Do you make a list every year, month, week? I love lists, they keep me focussed. I haven't yet got into lists of lists, but maybe one day I will get that crazy!

In 2015, I plan on spending more me time with my cameras. Time to play, explore and have fun.

The gym will also be seeing me a lot more - gosh, that sounds like a chore - but it isn't really!  Then there is food! Yes of course I will be spending more time testing out ideas and recipes. But I am back into a 5:2 fasting period, so I will be posting a few photos of what I eat on my 500 calorie days.

But enough about that. We needed a salad in a hurry over Christmas, this is what I came up with. - It has great flavour,  easy to prepare and very low in calories. A good salad to start off the New Year!

Roasted Cauliflower and Chick Pea Salad

Ingredients

1 head of cauliflower
2 cloves garlic crushed
1 brown onion, finely sliced
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
handful of pine nuts
3 tbls basil, chopped
1 400g tin of chick peas
dash of olive oil
knob of butter
salt and pepper
juice of 1 lemon

Pre heat oven 180º fan forced/350º degrees.  

Take one cauliflower and slice across it into 4 or 5 slabs and place into a baking dish. I used about 3/4 of  large cauliflower. Add a sprinkling of olive oil, salt and pepper and cinnamon and roast until it has a nice golden colour, approximately 30 - 35 minutes.

Take out of the pan and let it cool.

While the cauliflower is roasting, dry fry the pine nuts until golden and set aside.

Add knob of butter and olive oil to fry pan and add onions and garlic and cook on a very low heat for around 20 -30 minutes or until the onions are golden and caramelised. Set aside.

In a large serving bowl, add drained chick peas, basil, onions and garlic, pine nuts. Break up the cauliflower and add this to the bowl. Adjust seasoning. Add lemon juice, so the cauliflower is pretty tangy.

Add a sprinkling of olive oil and toss thoroughly and you are ready to serve.

Serves 6 as a side salad.

Kitchen Gadgets

My apologies for a slack posting month, but it has been a very busy time for some unknown reason. I am endeavouring to speed up posting this month because I hope to have a couple of weeks break over Christmas to play with ice cream recipes and enjoy the time with my family.

How many kitchen gadgets do you have that you simply can't live without? I find myself in love yet again with another little bit of plastic!

I am being deadly serious. Most times I get by with a cheese grater, a few sharp knives, a micro planer and an apple corer. Today, I was reading about this fantastic gadget - a Julienne Peeler and I knew I just had to have one. Ok, so I am fast becoming a kitchen gadget junkie! 

I headed down to my local kitchen shop to see if I could snaffle up one. My Kitchen is a great little shop in Main Street, Blackwood. They have the most amazing array of products that you would generally only find in a much larger store. It is a sheer delight to wander in and browse, but it isn't long before your eyes are drawn to something that you haven't seen before and you know that it is something you must have. 

My Kitchen has been in operation for close on 17 years and the current owner Karen, has been here for around 10 years. It just proves that this little shop has definitely provided the right service and products to it's local community over a long period of time.

Here is a peek into the world of My Kitchen.

So now back to my Julienne Peeler.

So why is this gadget so amazing. Well check these pictures out. I do own a Mandolin and it slices thing really finely and good sized julienne cuts for stir fries but this product is truly wonderful and completely different.

In celebration here is a quick salad, using my new peeler. And if this doesn't make you want to run to your handy kitchen supplier and buy one, then nothing will.

So humour me and  give it a try it!

Zucchini  and Cucumber Salad with *Herb Dressing

You will need:

2 - 3 zucchini

1 long continental cucumber

basil, chives, parsley - 2 tbls of each finely chopped

1 tbls capers finely chopped

3 tbls pine nuts, roasted in a dry pan

1/2 cup of plain yogurt
1 carrot

1 clove garlic minced

2 tbls lemon juice  

salt and pepper

2 tbls olive oil

1 tbls white wine vinegar

1/4 cup shaved parmesan cheese 

Using your Julienne Peeler, process the continental cucumber , zucchini and carrot. Place in a colander and add a pinch salt. Leave to drain for 30 minutes. Wash off the salt and squeeze dry the vegetables.  Place these in a bowl with the chopped capers, pine nuts and shaved parmesan.

Using a stick blender, blend herbs, garlic, yoghurt, lemon juice, vinegar, oil.

There should be a nice bite to this dressing. Adjust seasoning to suit with lemon and salt and pepper.

*This dressing was inspired by my friend Terri. When we worked together, one of the dressings Terri loved to make was a green, herb mayonnaise. Well Terri, I have taken out the mayonnaise and replaced it with yoghurt. Let me know what you think.