With Spring here and Summer just around the corner, I am really craving those fresh herbs and vegetables straight from the garden. Months of Winter has us serving up lots of comfort foods and subpar veggies shipped into the grocery stores leave us wanting. After all these months of several pasta days my ass ( in reference to size at this point) really needs to get back to the basics and all natural eating. Soooo…. I thought I would share a favorite recipe that I happen to be preparing for my family tonight. Now these aren’t veggies straight from the garden just yet but most of them soon will be. I am going to share this a couple ways. One is with the veggies only and would be great paired with a meat protein or as a stand-alone salad for a lunch. Since my family is vegetarian, I like to add quinoa to this for a little more protein. It is one of the most protein rich foods that we can eat and contains more fiber than other grains. And, since I am really obsessed with using my InstantPot right now….it’s really fast.
For a family of five, I diced (and I don’t spend time dicing them perfect…just dice them the way you want to eat them) and added the following: 8- Roma Tomatoes 1- Red Onion 4- Avocado Bunch of cilantro 2- English cucumber Then I add: 3 tsp Black Pepper 3 tsp course Sea Salt 2- Lemons juiced approx. 4 TBSP 3- TBSP Olive Oil Mix all this together really well. Now I cook my quinoa. Cook yours however you want to but I use the InstantPot. I add 2 cups rinsed quinoa to 3 3/4c water in the InstantPot. I set the manual high pressure setting for 1 min. and turn pressure valve to SEAL. Allow it to come to pressure and cook for the 1 min. When it beeps several times it is done. DO NOT OPEN LID! Allow it to vent by itself for 4 min. and then turn the pressure valve to VENT and let it sit until completely vented. I usually give it at least 8-10 min. just to be safe. I have a 6qt InstantPot so I like to cook my quinoa in a min. of this size batch. It seems to overcook when I do smaller sizes. So at this point you should cool your quinoa and when it is cooled add as much to your salad as you’d like. We usually add at least half. The other half you can freeze or use for another recipe or side dish the next night. We eat a lot of quinoa since it is so versatile and healthy so it doesn’t last long in the refrigerator. I have heard that cilantro can be substituted in this recipe for dill and that it tastes delicious also. I have not yet tried that but I am sure I will this Summer. I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as we do. This is going to be in regular rotation in our home these next several months and I am really excited to make it using some of the fresh veggies from the garden in another couple months.
1 Comment
Diana Hogan
5/1/2018 07:10:59 am
This looks really healthy. I will be trying this.
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Keri Nichol
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August 2018
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