The Quinolicious Salad

Quinoa is such an easy grain to work with – no pre-soaking required and gets done in 15 minutes flat. Additionally, for your scant effort, you are rewarded with 8 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber for every cup of quinoa – more than double of most other grains.

This salad is a wholesome lunch that keeps well all day. You can have it heated or at normal temperature. And best of all, I got an excuse to use my newly prepared sun dried tomatoes.

Quinoa Salad with Sundried Tomatoes, Peppers, Carrots, and Olives

Ingredients

• 1 cup quinoa
• 5-7 slivers of sundried tomatoes
• 1 green pepper
• 1 carrot
• Handful of chopped black olives
• Pinch of turmeric powder
• ½ teaspoon of chilli/paprika powder
• 10-15 black pepper corns
• Teaspoon of cumin
• Handful of mint leaves
• Dash of olive oil

To make:
Cook the quinoa in 2.5 cups of water in a pot. Add the turmeric, chilli powder and mint leaves.

Bash up the pepper corns and the cumin seeds. Add that to the quinoa. Let it cool.

Chop the pepper and carrot.

Once the quinoa is cooled down (so as not to cook and ruin the color of the veggies), add the veggies along with the sundried tomatoes.Add a splash of olive oil on top and toss well. 

Sweet and Sour Bean Sprouts Salad

I had a really good day yesterday – for the first time in a long time, I was completely raw yesterday. Well, the flax seed chikki is technically cooked, in that the jaggery is heated until it melts. But I will slot this under the raw category as there was hardly any jaggery and a ton of raw flax seeds. So, this morning, I thought I’d continue the raw trend. But dumb that I am, I put my endive lettuce in the freezer for lack of space in the veggie compartment below. I thought it would nicely thaw out like my frozen peas. But sadly, it’s all not looking too appetizing right now, so I laid those out in the sun today to dry out. Which meant, I had one less – and important – ingredient to work with for today’s lunch. Let’s face it – Salads with lettuce are so much easier to scarf down. So, a mung bean sprout salad, it had to be!

Mung beans - I've had them tons of times cooked as lentils in daals. But the first time as sprouts. I got a batch from Nature's Basket last week, but looks like they are quite easy to make at home. At least I think they are mung bean sprouts. Aren't they?

The salad's got peppers, ginger, mint and is dressed with (Korean) miso and maple syrup. So, its quite tangy and refreshing at the same time.

Sweet and Sour Mung Bean Sprouts Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1/2 inch knob of ginger
• 1/2 cup of mint

Dressing:

• 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon of miso paste
• 1 teaspoon of vegetable oil
• Juice of one lime

To make:
Slice your peppers, mint, and ginger finely.

Add to the bean sprouts.

Heat a little water and add to the miso paste till it dissolves. Add that to the maple syrup, lime juice, and oil mixture.

Add the dressing over the salad. Mix well.

Guava, Mulberry and Maple Salad

This is a really easy salad/dessert to make with very few ingredients. I added a couple of broken down pieces of my flaxseed chikki for added crunch. Flaxseed chikki is really easy to make – just melt some jaggery or brown sugar in a pan. Let cool for 5 minutes. Add the flax seeds. Stir well. Transfer to a flat bottomed pan and cut into diamond shaped or square pieces and let it set till it’s a solid mass.

Guava, Mulberry, Maple Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 large guava
• 10 mulberries
• 1 cup iceberg lettuce
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• 2 pieces of flaxseed chikki (optional)

To make:

• On a bed of lettuce leaves, lay the guava pieces.
• Add the mulberries and the maple syrup on top.
• Finish with chunks of flaxseed chikki on top.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Beet Salad with Peppers and Lettuce

Eating a lot of beetroot turns your pee pink/red, eating more makes your poo pink as well. That's right. And on that rather appetizing thought, here's the recipe - Its really quick and simple to make, and is wholesome and filling.

Beetroot Salad with Peppers and Lettuce

Ingredients:

• 1 beet
• 1 green pepper
• 1 red pepper
• 2 cups of iceberg lettuce
• Handful of sunflower seeds

Dressing:

• 1 teaspoon of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon of dry basil

To make:
Chop the peppers and lettuce into thin slivers.

Chop the beets into circular discs, so that they remain the star of the salad and get their moment in the sun.

Mix all the salad ingredients.

Add the salad dressing when you want to eat the salad. Garnish with sunflower seeds.

Life, Love, Warts, and All....

My searches on FindingVegan inevitably lead me, by way of its colorful pictures and inspiring food combinations, to the Gluten Free Goddess. I was looking for quinoa recipes, when, lo and behold, by hyperlinking magic, I arrived at this delightful list "Fifty Five Things I've Learned in 55 Years" (I didn't know she was this old!).

Check it out here.

Hopefully, I'll make a similar list when if I turn 30. Thirty's OK -women are at their prime then. But 40 and (gulp) 50, makes me anxious, I must admit. Mainly coz all the effects of my smoking are going to show up somewhere (I'm hoping its on my ass and not my face).

Here's a stab:
1. You can be a feminist and still wear a bra/shave your legs/wear makeup. Having saggy boobs isn't a badge of honor!

2. When men call you a bitch, take it as a compliment. You just seem powerful and that's intimidating to the weaker sex. When a woman calls you a bitch, you probably are one.

3. Everyone has cellulite. Some people just do a better job of covering theirs. Get over it.

4. Smile, and you get a lot done. Frown, and you just end up with wrinkles.

5. Don't feel guilty about cutting people out of your life. Like a good purge after too much booze, it is sometimes necessary and therapeutic.

6. Throw away your weighing scales - its needless torment. As long as you fit in your current clothes, you're doing alright.

7. Gay guys ARE hotter. And the reason they are hotter is because God is just not that kind to women. Its a proven fact.

8. Get married because you want to, not because you have to.

9. Do your own thing. Don't follow the herd. What are you - a cow?

10. Karma. Its real and will bite you in your backside.


To be cont.d....

Lettuce Salad with Maple and Mulberry Dressing

You know I just had to try my maple syrup I bought yesterday! :)

Lettuce is such a delicious and easy to work with vegetable. You have to be a moron to totally wreck a recipe containing lettuce. And for some strange reason, I surmised that maple and miso would be a good combination. Don't laugh -I Googled it and yes, there are recipes combining those exact same ingredients. But lettuce is sweet - I didnt want to ruin it with miso's inherent saltiness. So, the miso+maple combo will have to wait. Maybe with the mung bean sprouts, sometime later this week. For now, let's just combine the sweet of the lettuce with the sweetness of my mulberries:

Lettuce Salad with Maple and Mulberry Dressing

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of iceberg lettuce
• 1.5 cups of spinach
• 1/2 a green pepper
• 1/2 a pomogranate
• Handful of mint
• About 10-15 mulberries

Dressing

• 5 mulberries
• 3 Teaspoons of maple syrup
• Dash of olive oil

To make:

Clean and chop the spinach, lettuce, pepper and mint.

Add the pomogranate and mulberries.

Crush with your bare hands the 5 mulberries for your dressing into the maple syrup and olive oil mixture. Mix and add to the salad. I typically dont have my salad dripping in dressing as I make my salads to last me the whole day and keeping them wilt-free and fresh is a bigger priority. If you're going to have the salad immediately, by all means make more of the salad dressing.

Have this within a reasonable amount of time - The lettuce leaves will start to wilt if you do not refrigerate the salad. Other than that - DELISH!