Quinoa Salad with Apple Cider Vinegar

Quinoa is a super versatile food, it's also tasty, healthy, and an ancient grain, meaning it hasn't been tampered with the way some other grains have been.  Two years ago I planted some quinoa seeds in my backyard, but as soon as they sprouted, the bunnies cleared all the sprouts.  I'd like to plant quinoa again, because it has amazing flowers and because I like using it in various ways.

This is a very simple quinoa salad.  It can be adjusted by using various ingredients.  What makes it yummy is the basic salad dressing, which is oil and apple cider vinegar.

To start, cook some quinoa, I usually use one cup, and it makes enough for three meals.  While the quinoa is cooking, heat some butter in a pan.  Wash and cut up a zucchini, and add to the butter.  Wash the kale, tear the leaves into pieces, discard the hard stems, and add to the pan.  Cut up a head of broccoli and add it to the mix.

Cut up a tomato.  I like plum tomatoes for stuff like this, because they aren't as juicy/seedy.

Once the quinoa is done, put it in a bowl, add the veg, season with salt and pepper, mix it all up.  Pour a bit of apple cider vinegar and olive oil or grape seed oil over top, mix it in.  Cut up some feta, and sprinkle over top.  One of the grocery stores I go to sells Macedonian feta, which I prefer to the various Greek fetas.  It's creamier and not as salty, almost like something between goat's cheese and Greek feta.

I've made this salad with peppers, onions, spinach, mushrooms, olives, sunflower seeds.  You can use whatever you have on hand.  A lot of the recipes I come up with are based on ingredients I have or need to use up.  This salad is yummy warm or cold, and perfect for lunches and picnics.

Kale and Chicken and Raspberry Custard Tart

I was at the farm the other day and picked up two chickens, 60 eggs, 4 pork chops, and a few leeks.

I baked one whole chicken for dinner Friday, and there was enough for yesterday, and still some left over for today's lunch.  I posted a baked chicken recipe back in September, this one may have been slightly different, but similar idea.  I used some fresh lemon oregano and s&p as rub, carrots, bay leaf, and leek.

Here is the tasty kale recipe I made up today.  I'm very pleased with this tasty dish, normally I just sautée kale in butter, sometimes with garlic, but this is way tastier.

Ingredients:
- butter
- garlic (I used one large clove of local garlic, which is much more flavourful than the Chinese import)
- slivered almonds
- caraway seeds
- cumin seeds
- s&p
- 4-5 plum (Roma) tomatoes
- bunch of kale


Melt butter in a pan, add garlic, slivered almonds, then diced tomatoes.  I used 4 or 5 for 1 bunch of kale.  In the mean time take a sweet potato, wash/ scrub and cube it, then steam it, this way it retains its shape and doesn't get mushy around the edges.  Once the tomatoes have softened, add caraway and cumin seeds (crush them so they're more flavourful), s&p, stir, add kale, occasionally stir until it softens and shrinks.  Add the steamed sweet potato, stir.  Done.  So tasty.

Very steamy.

What was left of the chicken.  I love meat closest to the bone.

For dessert I made a raspberry custard tart.  Last time I made pie (pecan), I made enough dough for three pies, so I froze two.  I still have one in the freezer, and I keep thinking about a slice of pie I had a couple of years ago at The Pie Shack in Toronto.  The pie was called autumn harvest, and it was made with peaches, plums and apples, and had a top crust.  I'm thinking of making one with apples and plums and a crumble topping.

Enjoy!

Lunches, Snacks, and Bites

Some days I like "grazing", where I eat bits of food throughout the day, other days I have meals.  In the end they're all meals varying in size.  I thought I'd share what I eat for lunch when I'm home, some ingredients will repeat, and there is a "formula", usually some grain, mainly rye bread in various forms, meat, veg, and cheese, sometimes with soup, sometimes with tea, or a smoothie, a milk shake, or freshly squeezed lemonade.  At times, it's not only dinner ideas that people get in a rut with, it's boring to eat the same stuff for lunch all the time too.  Here are some examples of what I like to eat, very easy, nutritious and filling lunches or snacks:

Fresh carrots, savoy sauerkraut (home made), pickled beets (home made), and Smoked Sirloin Tip (Ogonowka in Polish) on a piece of pumpernickel.

Very crusty walnut cranberry bread with a slice of salted butter.  

Brussel sprouts, with butter and maple smoked unrefined sea salt.

Leek and horseradish sauerkraut (home made, one of my very favourite flavours), rye grilled cheese (Irish old cheddar), and carrots, made with butter.

Goose liver pate with cumin sauerkraut (made by me; I love sauerkraut).

Pumpernickel with lard, lardons, and raw maple smoked rock salt.

Rye with butter and a slice of pig skin sausage - amazing!  I get this sausage at Sausage Partners in Toronto; they make it on site.

Zucchini, smoked Polish sausage, parmigiano reggiano, lachsschinken, kale, sautéed in butter.

I'm not sure what this is called in English, but it's a type of blood sausage, with fat chunks, and tongue; it's delicious.  I find congealed blood tastes a bit like chocolate, the two go well together in recipes.

Here is the blood sausage from above, on rye, with fresh cucumbers, and tomato soup.

Avocado, my caraway bay sauerkraut, Calabrese salami, fresh greens and parsley, grown in my kitchen.

Pumpernickel, Calabrese salami, sauerkraut, creamy tomato soup.

Pumpernickel with lard, lardons, and my delicious home made sauerkraut.

Scrambled eggs with sausage, onion, and rye.

Pumpernickel with lard and lardons and dill pickles, which my dad made.  When I say dill pickles I mean real pickles in brine, not vinegar.

I hope some of my lunch and snack ideas will help you try new things, and keep lunch exciting.  When I work, I always make and bring my own lunch.  It always gets comments and people start making excuses why they don't make their own lunch.  In reality, tasty, healthy, and filling food doesn't have to take  a long time to plan or make.

Figs, tasty on their own, or with a variety of meats and cheeses, also great in tarts with caramelized onions and cheese.

Kalon Digor!  (Breton)