Archive for the 'grains' Category
Back in December when I was bedridden with a back that capsized on the day of our cookiepalooza, which resulted in Mike bringing up Oreo truffles and shortbread at hour intervals, I started to fantasize about big salads, and would have paid $100 to anyone who delivered a hefty dose of kale.
I started flipping through food sites and blogs, looking for pictures of green things. Guys, I had it bad. I bookmarked this kale and quinoa salad with cranberries and feta, and swore I’d make it the minute I could stand at the kitchen counter again. I didn’t of course, and then it was Christmas, and the new year, and now February. So today, amongst it all, I made it for lunch. No biggie.
The great thing about a quinoa salad – besides its obvious deliciousness and ability to transform hard core leafy greens like kale – is that you can keep it in the fridge and have something great to dip into at any time without any mental effort. For days when your brain is otherwise occupied.
Although you can cook quinoa like rice -in a rice cooker, even- I like to cook it like pasta, in a pot of water, and strain it and return it to the warm pot to steam. Adding a handful of dried cranberries helps plump the fruit while absorbing excess moisture, as does a tea towel draped over the pot to absorb the steam. This guarantees fluffy quinoa.
The recipe – inspired by Dorie Greenspan’s chard stuffing – called for pine nuts, which cost about as much as platinum these days. Although I have a half a small bag in the freezer left over from some recipe or other, I’ve been coming up with substitutes, not wanting to waste the precious bitty things. But it occurred to me it would be an even more colossal waste to have them linger into freezer burned oblivion, only to be tossed out 10 years down the road.
And so I carefully unwrapped and shook out some pine nuts to toast in the toaster oven. I may have counted them, just to be fair. I gingerly set it on “toast” and ran to quick check my email.
Walnuts it is!
This is simply dressed with olive oil, salt and pepper, and a squeeze of lemon – but it would be fab with a simple balsamic or red wine vinaigrette.
Kale and Quinoa Salad with Cranberries and Feta
Adapted from Beyond the Plate, where it was inspired by Dorie Greenspan’s Chard Stuffing. Quantities of each ingredient are up to you, of course – adjust each according to your taste.
1 cup quinoa, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup dried cranberries
olive oil, for cooking
1 medium shallot or a small chunk of purple onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 small bunch of kale
salt and pepper
pinch dried chili flakes (optional)
1/2 cup crumbled feta
1/4 cup pine nuts or 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
a squeeze of lemon (optional)
In a medium pot of boiling salted water, cook the quinoa for 12-14 minutes, until just tender and the germ separates, making a little curly Q. Drain well in a fine sieve, then return to the pot (off the heat, but still warm), add the cranberries, cover with a tea towel and the lid, and set aside to cool.
In a medium skillet set over medium-high heat, heat a drizzle of oil and sauté the shallot or onion for a couple minutes, until soft. Remove the tough ribs from the kale, stack the leaves and thinly slice them. Add to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes until wilted. If you like, add a small splash of water to the pan to create steam, and cover for a few minutes. Season with salt and add a pinch of chili flakes, if you like. If you added water, remove the lid and cook until the moisture has cooked off.
Add the kale to the quinoa, along with the feta and pine nuts or walnuts. Drizzle with oil and season with salt and pepper. Add a squeeze of lemon, if you like. Toss again and serve immediately. Serves 4.
February 02 2012 | grains and one dish and salads and vegetarian | 15 Comments »
I know I’ve shared plenty of granola here before, but I have a new favourite. This clumpy, crunchy granola is bound together with peanut butter and pure maple syrup. I KNOW!! The peanut butter adds a light crunchiness I’ve never achieved with other granola formulas – like Harvest Crunch, without the over-the-top sweetness. Next time I’ll venture into peanut butter and honey territory.
I’ve had a big baking sheet of this on my kitchen counter all afternoon, and when I had to leave the house I got all panicky for a minute that I had to leave my new bff, and wound up filling a ziplock bag of it to tuck in my pocket and sneak handfuls of. You could of course spice it up with cinnamon or a pinch of ground ginger, but I kind of like it straight-up. Of course feel free to take liberties with nuts, seeds and dried fruit, too.
Extra Clumpy Peanut Butter & Maple Granola
4-5 c. old-fashioned (large flake) oats
2 c. sliced or slivered almonds
1 c. shredded coconut
1/4 t. fine sea salt
1/2 c. creamy peanut butter
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/3 c. maple syrup (the real stuff!) or liquid honey
1 c. dried fruit, such as raisins, cranberries, cherries, chopped dried figs, dates or apricots
Preheat the oven to 325F. In a large bowl, mix together the oats, almonds, coconut and salt.
In a small saucepan, combine the peanut butter, brown sugar and maple syrup over medium heat and stir until everything is melted and smooth.
Pour over the oat mixture and toss until well combined. Spread the mixture out onto a large rimmed sheet pan and bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring once or twice, until pale golden and crunchy/clumpy. Let cool and stir in the dried fruit. Store in an airtight container or in individual zip-lock baggies. Makes about 6 cups.
January 27 2012 | breakfast and grains | 18 Comments »
Nothing special to report for Mother’s Day, I’m afraid. I woke up early, with that morning-after dread triggered by the realization I went a little overboard on party nibbles (spring rolls! ginger pork! curried chicken toasts!) and birthday cake (the kind with the cheap shortening icing that coats your mouth and would make swell undereye cream!) last night. I had a bit of a food hangover. Mike had another kind, which is why he didn’t stir until after I had long since woken up with W, and had already made him breakfast to eat while watching Dora (the Mothers’ Day special). Humph.
I had to work today, anyway. So I got the kitchen clean enough to work on recipes and photos for a couple magazine assignments, and I went shopping for a long list of ingredients for my class at Red Deer College tonight. I was feeling a little sorry for myself, and so made a grainy salad to bring on the drive, and to eat before class, lest I talk myself thru a drive thru or ravenously devour half the finished products at our baking class. This has been on my mind for a few days:
Melissa W on 06 May 2011 at 12:59 pm: I make a similar incarnation of this salad using quinoa, sautéed leeks, celery, lemon/olive oil, feta and cranberries. Oh, and toasted pine nuts or toasted almonds. Glorious! It is magical. We call it Magic Salad, in fact.
I could not not try this. It is indeed magical. I hope I did it justice. I tried not to eat all the crispy fried leeks straight out of the pan. Note to self: think of other things to do with crispy leeks.
You won’t need a recipe, really. Just cook up some quinoa (see below), and cut the white and pale green part off the bottom of a leek, cut it in half lengthwise and rinse it well, getting in between all the layers. Thinly slice it and saute in a drizzle of oil and blob of butter until golden and crispy. Cool and add it to the cooled quinoa along with a finely chopped celery stalk, half cup crumbled feta, quarter cup (ish) dried cranberries and toasted pine nuts or almonds (walnuts would do well too, I think); dress with olive oil (I thought extra-virgin was a bit overwhelming, but that’s just me), lemon juice and freshly ground pepper. Yum. Thanks Melissa!
(To cook quinoa, rinse it well under cool water in a fine sieve, then cook in a pot of boiling salted water over medium heat until tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes. Just like you’d cook pasta. Drain well, return to the pot, put the lid back on and let it steam – this will produce fluffy quinoa – until cooled.)
May 08 2011 | grains and salads and vegetarian | 18 Comments »
It’s funny, when I get swept up in weeks and months of eating poorly – too much grazing on too much junk (I really am more lowbrow than people think I am) – how quickly I forget how much I love grainy salads like this. Quinoa with black beans and mango, wild rice and lentils, brown rice with barley and chickpeas – all jumbles of good things that make me feel and function so much better (and far wider awake) than a diet of toast, Cheezies, coffee and wine. Funny, that.
Funny too how my body never seems to forget how much it adores Cheezies and chocolate.
I do need to wean myself off of a few things. I’ve been dancing around the subject of the new year here – I haven’t quite embraced it with as much chutzpah (yet) as I usually do, but I suppose I should go ahead and address the obvious before it turns into February. Apologies in advance for the rant.
I’m so tired of the same old new year, new YOU! message we’re all inundated with every January. (Although, admittedly, the old me is in need of a bit of an overhaul. Emphasis on the haul.) Post-holiday, everyone talks about a need to detox – yet I don’t think of Christmas and all the wonderful things that came with it as a toxin we need to cleanse ourselves of. It’s like the idea that food is sinful and dieting and exercise is our penance. Although I can certainly appreciate the concept of self-improvement, I despise the (first-world) message that comes every January: that we’re not good enough and we’d better get working on becoming the very best we should be, that version of ourselves that we’re all capable of achieving if we just work harder at it. No pressure.
What’s wrong with the old me? The old of all of us? Whatever happened to being happy with what we have, and who we are? And really, is a constant reminder that we all need to be improved upon the best motivation? No wonder so many of us wind up unhappy, defeated and discouraged, annoyed with ourselves that we can’t be all that, do all that, and pull off a bikini by summertime.
I’m almost done. Feel free to skip all this and scroll down to the recipe.
Of course this new year, new you season does act as a catalyst, the tipping point where our environment changes, encouraging a collective jump onto the healthy bandwagon.
And yes, it will come as no surprise that I too need to lose weight. Confession: I’m up almost 50 pounds from this time last year. 50! Pounds! I could cite various and myriad injuries (to my foot, knee, back, psyche) of 2010 that slowed me down, physically and motivationally, but I don’t want to excuse it away. Because really it was all that Salted Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate, Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie (I see a trend here), more time spent in front of the computer, an increasing number of food events and a higher than average love (obsession?) of it all. I’m a food writer. I spend my days thinking about, writing about, researching, preparing and photographing food. Case in point: I leave for Vancouver first thing in the morning for a few days touring restaurants and checking out other food-related events and locales. Please don’t hate me. The point is, I need to ensure my hobby, passion and job, while paying the bills doesn’t also cause my physical ruin.
I also need more sleep. It’s the most fun thing on my to-do list.
Which is all to say you’ll likely see more of this sort of thing around here in the coming weeks, and also – I may be cranky. Don’t worry, we won’t go without brownies and the occasional waffle. I’m trying to remind myself of all the good-for-you stuff I do love – beany, grainy salads keep well and travel well, so they’re easy to stash away in the fridge for security reasons (defense against take-out) or bring with you when you need something good to go. Nutty, chewy wheat berries (the entire kernel of wheat, minus the hull) are well worth seeking out; they make a great foundation for a salad – similar to barley but mahogany-coloured and smooth. Great for breakfast, too.
Barley & Wheat Berry Salad with Chickpeas and Feta
of course the measurements here are approximate – add as much or as little of everything as you like.
1/2 cup wheat berries
1/2 cup pearl or pot barley
1/4-1/2 cup golden raisins or chopped dates
1 19 oz (540 mL) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup crumbled feta
2 celery stalks, chopped
a big handful of Italian parsley, chopped or torn
1/4 purple onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive or canola oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar or lemon juice (or to taste)
salt and freshly ground black pepper
In a medium saucepan, cover wheat berries with a few inches of water; bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let stand for an hour. (Alternatively, soak them in water overnight.)
Pour off most of the water from the wheat berries, add the barley to the pot and cover with water by a few inches; bring to a boil and cook for 40 minutes, until both barley and wheat berries are tender. Drain and rinse under cold water to stop them from cooking; drain well and transfer to a bowl. Stir in the dates and let cool completely.
Add the chickpeas, feta, celery, parsley, onion and walnuts; drizzle with oil and vinegar and sprinkle with salt and pepper; toss to combine. Serve immediately or refrigerate until needed. Makes lots.
January 09 2011 | beans and grains and one dish and salads | 40 Comments »
I think I’ve found my new favourite Christmas food gift. Granola, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
1) By the time we actually get to Christmas, some of us are feeling Christmas cookie burnout. (No offense, shortbread. I’ll still eat you.)
2) I have friends who are gluten free, dairy free, egg free – this makes everyone happy without seeming like a compromise.
3) I make a big batch every year for my dad, anyway.
4) It’s easy to stir together and bake, and fun to package in glass jars or Christmassy little bags.
5) It has a long shelf life, so will still be fine if the recipient doesn’t get around to eating it immediately.
6) No one will regift it or get rid of leftovers before their new healthy resolutions.
Have I sold it strongly enough? Today it’s about all I’ve been eating – with plain Vital Green Farms yogurt – on account of picking up Mike’s stomach flu sometime mid-Christmas afternoon.
Christmas Granola
use melted butter instead of oil for particularly decadent granola, or add some flax oil to boost omega 3s.
4-5 cups old-fashioned (large flake) oats
1 cup sliced or slivered almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts or a combination
1/2 cup shredded coconut
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey, Roger’s Golden Syrup or maple syrup
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla or coconut extract
1/2 cup green pumpkin seeds
1/2-1 cup dried cranberries, raisins, slivered apricots or other dried fruit
Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat baking mat.
In a large bowl, mix the oats, nuts, coconut, cinnamon and salt. In a small bowl, stir together the oil, brown sugar, honey/Roger’s Golden Syrup/maple syrup and vanilla. Pour over the oat mixture and stir until well coated.
Spread out onto one or two baking sheets, making clumps by squeezing some of it together if you like. Bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring two or three times, until golden. Remove from the oven and stir in the pumpkin seeds and cranberries. Cool completely, then package in jars or sealed bags.
December 26 2010 | breakfast and grains | 13 Comments »
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