Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas and Arugula

This salad, based on a recipe from one of Curtis Stone's cookbooks,  is very easy once you get through with the vegetable prep work.

Ingredients:

2 cups arugula
1 cup of quinoa
2 cups of  low sodium vegetable broth
1 English cucumber, diced
2 tomatoes, diced
1 15 oz. can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 red pepper, diced

Directions:

Add quinoa and vegetable broth to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes, until quinoa is cooked and the liquid has disappeared. Allow quinoa to cool.

Mix chopped vegetables, chickpeas, quinoa, and arugula together. Top with a pre-made dressing, or a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

This salad would also be good topped with some savory baked tofu for dinner.

Cabbage with Tomato, Bulgur, and Chickpeas

 

I mentioned to my mom the other day that I was craving cabbage (odd, i know) and she sent me a link to this recipe by Martha Shulman. It was perfect, actually, because I had picked up some bulgur the other day and had yet to find a use for it. I added roasted brussel sprouts and subbed 1 tsp oregano for the fresh dill because I have a strong aversion to anything with dill in it. End result? Very hearty but a bit bland. I ended up adding some spice in the form of sriracha...but I do tend to add sriracha to everything. Definitely satisfied my odd cabbage craving though!

 

 

 Ingredients:

 

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon sweet paprika
1 medium head green or red cabbage, finely shredded
1 14-ounce can chopped tomatoes with juice
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar, cider vinegar or sherry vinegar
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill       
2 cups water
1 cup coarse bulgur
1 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

Directions:
      
1. Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large, heavy lidded skillet or Dutch oven. Add the onion, and cook, stirring often, until tender, about five minutes. Stir in a pinch of salt and the paprika. Cook, stirring, until the onion is thoroughly tender and infused with paprika, three to four minutes.
2. Add the cabbage, and cook, stirring, for three minutes or until it begins to wilt. Stir in the tomatoes, sugar and vinegar, and add salt to taste. Bring to a simmer, lower the heat, cover and simmer 15 minutes until the cabbage is thoroughly tender.
3. Stir in the dill and the water, and bring a to a boil. Add the bulgur and chickpeas. Stir to combine. When the water comes back to a boil, reduce the heat to low and cover. Simmer 10 minutes or until all of the water has been absorbed. Remove from the heat, taste and adjust seasonings, and serve hot or at room temperature.
 

 

Kale Salad with Maple Mustard Dressing

I am super excited about the new cookbooks that I got for Christmas. One of them, Forks Over Knives, is particularly exciting because the recipes are all vegan, and all low fat. I usually don't get too excited about salads in cookbooks - I rarely have the patience to follow recipes for something I feel like I can put together just as easily on my own. However, this book has quite a few salad recipes that caught my eye. The one I made the other day, a kale salad with maple mustard dressing, was surprisingly unique in taste.
 
 Dressing:

• Zest and juice of 1 lemons
• 1 cup cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tbps cup tahini
• 1 tbps stone-ground mustard
• 1 tbps Braggs Amino Acids (or wheat-free tamari or low-sodium soy sauce)
• 1 tbs. 100% pure maple syrup
• 2 tbps nutritional yeast flakes
• 1/4 cup water

Salad:

• 6 cups kale, ribs removed & shredded
• 2 cup of broccoli florets, cut into tiny pieces
• 1 cup of red cabbage, shredded
• 1 cup of carrots, shredded
• 1 15 oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1. Place all dressing ingredients into blender and blend until smooth (add more or less water to get to the desired consistency)
2. Mix salad ingredients together and add dressing.

Vegetable Jelfrazi

Have I mentioned previously that I love Jamie Oliver? A good looking Brit who cooks and is a great role model for healthier (if not vegan) eating. If only I could understand his choice of baby names. Buddy Bear Maurice? Poppy Honey Rosie? Daisy Boo Pamela? Petal Blossom Rainbow? Seriously? 

I forgive you, Jamie, because you give me recipes like the below Vegetable Jelfrazi. While there is quite a bit of chopping involved,  I promise that this dish is worth it.

A few notes:

• This makes a LOT. I had to switch pans halfway through cooking it....and my huge wok was still barely large enough. Halve the recipe if you do not have a big enough pan.
• Red curry paste can be hard to find...look for it in the Asian section of your supermarket. I could not find the Patak curry paste Jamie uses so I used Maesri Thai Red Curry instead which turned out to be very (!) spicy. 
• I left out butter and switched the red chilli pepper to a jalapeno. Otherwise I kept his original recipe pretty true to form, as it was already very vegan friendly.

Ingredients:
1 medium onion
1 jalapeno
A thumb-sized piece of fresh root ginger
2 cloves of garlic
A small bunch of fresh coriander
2 red peppers
1 cauliflower
3 ripe tomatoes
1 small butternut squash
1 x 400g tin of chickpeas
Vegetable oil
½ a 283g jar of Patak’s jalfrezi curry paste
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 lemons

Prep:

 Peel, halve and roughly chop your onion

Finely slice the chili

Peel and finely slice the ginger and garlic

Pick the coriander leaves and finely chop the stalks

Halve, deseed and roughly chop the peppers

Break the green leaves off the cauliflower and discard

Break the cauliflower into florets and roughly chop the stem

Quarter the tomatoes

Carefully halve the butternut squash, then scoop out the seeds with a spoon and discard. Slice the squash into inch-size wedges, leaving the peel on but removing any thick skin, then roughly chop into smaller pieces

Drain the chickpeas

Cook:

Put a large casserole-type pan on a medium to high heat and add a couple of lugs of oil

Add the onions, chilli, ginger, garlic and coriander stalks and cook for 10 minutes, until softened and golden

Add the peppers, butternut squash, drained chickpeas and jalfrezi curry paste

Stir well to coat everything with the paste

Add the cauliflower, the fresh and tinned tomatoes and the vinegar

Fill 1 empty tin with water, pour into the pan and stir again

Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 45 minutes with the lid on

Check the curry after 30 minutes and, if it still looks too liquidy, leave the lid off for the rest of the cooking time

When the vegetables are tender, taste and add salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice

Serve:

Serve over basmati rice with a sprinkle of coriander leaves and a few lemon wedges for squeezing over.

Chickpea, Brussel Sprout, and "Sausage" Salad

Brussel sprouts have a bad rap. And I can understand why if anyone has ever had boiled, mushy, and soggy sprouts forced on them as kids. I, however, am very pro-brussel sprouts. They are actually the only item at Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner that I put in a special request for. The trick is to bake or fry brussel sprouts - not boil them! Tossed with olive oil and salt and baked at 400' for 40 minutes is my favorite way to eat them. Last night I wanted to make a meal out of them, so I tried a receipe I found on Marcus Samuelsson's  website. Fast, simple, and yummy.

Two cooking notes:

• I used a food processor to save time shredding my brussel sprouts. I think in the future I would do this by hand to keep more texture in the sprouts. I think this would also make the salad more visually appealing.
•  Do not overcook the brussel sprouts! They should stay green and vibrant and slightly crunchy.

Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive oil
2  Trader Joe's Italian Sausageless Sausage
2 cloves minced garlic
red pepper flakes, to taste
salt and black pepper
1 lb brussels sprouts, shredded in a food processor or roughly chopped
1/2 cup white wine
1 can garbanzo beans


Method:

1. Put the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. When it’s hot, crumble the sausages into the pan and cook, stirring occasionally, to break the meat into relatively small bits, until browned, 5 to 10 minutes. Add the garlic and chile flakes and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook and stir for another minute or so.

2. Add the Brussels sprouts and wine to the skillet and cook, stirring frequently, until the sprouts are tender but still a bit crunchy, 5 to 10 minutes.

3. Add the beans and cook, stirring occasionally, until they are heated through, just a minute or 2. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

 

Quinoa, Chickpea, and Roasted Vegetable Salad

My orzo pasta salad worked out so well for lunches last week that I decided to make another salad this week. I have made quinoa & chickpea salads in the past and this time I roasted some fresh vegetables I had on hand to add flavor. I had every intention of making a lemon vinaigrette dressing from scratch when I started the salad....but by the end I got lazy and used some store bought salad dressing I already had instead (I used Newman’s Light Italian Dressing). Add some pita bread and voila - an easy, healthy pack-and-go lunch!

Ingredients:
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa (rinsed)
• 1 green pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 zucchini, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 medium eggplant, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes
• 1 15oz can of chickpeas


Directions:
Cook the quinoa according to package directions. Once cooked, allow to cool.

Preheat oven to 425. Toss vegetables with a generous pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Roast for 30-45 minutes.

Rinse and drain the can of chickpeas. Transfer quinoa to large bowl and mix in chickpeas and roasted vegetables. Add about ¼ cup of dressing of your choice (as mentioned, I used Newman’s Own Lighten Up Italian). Chill before serving.