When the harvest is abundant…

Eating like this is so easy! And nutritious! And fun!

And apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking of making salads with quinoa today…

The trick to cooking quinoa is to make sure you soak it first. Here is what I do:

Pour the quinoa into the pot you will be cooking it in. With the water on full blast (or use the ‘hose attachment’ if you have one), add water to the pot until it is full, making sure the quinoa is well agitated.

Let it soak for approximately 20 minutes.

Pour the soaked quinoa into a colander (obviously you need one with tiny tiny holes) and, using the running water again, rinse it well making sure you agitate the quinoa once again.

Put quinoa back into the pot, add cold water, simmer for 10-20 minutes (until you see the little seeds pop), and drain into the colander.

Rinse with cold water. Let it sit on the colander, back on the empty pot, with the lid on top (to keep it from drying out) for a while, so that it will drain properly.

Dressing

I find that most dressings are too pungent for this family (well, I like pungent, but the little people not so much). A small amount of lemon juice with olive oil is usually all I need to add a bit of flavour to the quinoa. Mix it with veggies and herbs, and it’s delicious.

Benjamin, my 6 year old, said he doesn’t really like quinoa, but when I gave him a small bowl of the above pictured salad, he said he really liked it like that, mixed with the greens.

Recipe for Quinoa Salad with golden Beets

With the quinoa I added:

- golden beets (farmers’ markets had them!)
- cherry tomatoes (from my backyard)
- red little onions (from my mom’s back yard)
- herbs (parsley and chives from my back yard)
- lettuce (farmers’ market)

Toss and enjoy. Add more dressing (lemon and olive oil) or seasonings (sea salt? pepper?) or different herbs (chervil?) and veggies (we like fennel!) at will.

What’s to eat in January? Part 1

Quinoa and Fennel salad with Dill and Lemon dressing

Quinoa is a grain with a high protein content. Fennel, and fresh dill (or any other fresh herb like parsley, or mint), are still tasty enough even in the depth of winter when mixed with a flavourful dressing containing some sort of citrus fruit.

Eat this salad for lunch, or as a side.

To cook the quinoa, simply follow the directions on the package, drain, and let cool. Toss with some olive oil. Chop up some herbs and fennel, and mix with the juice of about a teaspoon of lemon, some sea salt, pepper, and more olive oil if desired. Cover and let the juices marinate with the grain for a bit in the refrigerator. Before eating, give it another stir.

I make other winter salads as well…some with beets…and dream about my spring planting days ahead.

To carb or not to carb

That is the question. Isn’t it.

We all know that the human body needs carbs for energy. The tricky part is to choose complex carbs over simple carbs. So, whole grain, fresh fruits and veggies, those are part of what is considered “good carbs” since they take longer to convert to sugar (=energy) in the body than something like a refined product made with white flour, white sugar, and is otherwise heavily processed.

Choosing whole foods that are complex carbs isn’t that difficult if you shop right. The hardest part for me was to overcome the cravings for starchy, sweet foods. Particularly when the fatigue hit. And living in a cold climate hasn’t helped either. There is nothing more comforting than a big bowl of pasta with melted cheese on top when you’re freezing your butt off. Or a nice cup of tea or three, along with a yummy cookie, or a slice of cake. Or two.

And don’t get me started on the chocolate.

Then one day I realized that although my clothes still fit, I don’t feel so healthy. I feel heavy and uncomfortable. And while feeling tired and bored and fed up with the weather, all of which has contributed to a more sedative lifestyle than I would prefer, the last thing I wanted to do was go on a diet.

You know, a traditional diet. Or a fad diet.

Oh no. I can’t do that. Frankly, I need my indulgences, at least for a little while longer.

But I can do something about the amount of carbs I’ve been ingesting, whole grain and all. I realized that I don’t need to have so many carbs in the form of bread, pasta or related product. Instead, I could reach for something other than carbs.

Like fennel. I LOVE fennel. It’s so sweet and crunchy, I can eat the entire bulb by myself. (My 3yo loves it too, and the toddler enjoys sucking on it). So, instead of buying a fennel here and there, I’ve been buying them in twos and threes, ignoring the fact that cheap this is not…

And you know what? Although the first day of less carbs was hard, and the cravings were distracting, I managed to do just fine by the following few days. The body really does adjust.

Next, out came the navy beans which I made into a little salad, dressed with a bit of mustard and white wine vinegar, and stuffed into a whole wheat tortilla roll (they’re so thin, yet still a complex carb) and voila. Craving subsided.

Out came the quinoa, mixed up into a lovely cucumber-and-dill salad, sprinkled with lemon juice and olive oil, and voila. I felt satisfied and full(er). Quinoa has the added bonus of being a high protein food, which, as we all know, is a good thing. The high protein part, I mean.

I could also make stuff with lentils. Or squash. I got all kinds of food ideas here and here…

We still eat pasta. The kids particularly like it, so I make it for them. These days, access to whole wheat pasta has become norm, and you can always reduce portions too. Like last night: we had whole wheat fresh linguine, mixed with home made tomato sauce (full of onion, leeks and garlic), and on the side I heaped a large pile of rapini tossed and lightly steamed with olive oil, more garlic, and a squeeze of lemon. Yum.

But then, I get a moment of weakness. There is chocolate in the house, and Ben wanted to bake something, and before you know it, the carbs are back. And I’m off the wagon again.

But  I will perservere. Because I know I can, and because I know that cheating once in a while is not the end of the world.

And besides, I made the lemon poppy seed cake with 1/2 whole wheat flour…and didn’t make the sugary coating to pour over it….and only had one slice of it yesterday (ok, two, but they were SMALL slices).

Happy less-carb eating!

How to solve the mid-afternoon slump dilemma

I’m not going to call it a diet.

But that mid-afternoon slump that makes me scarf down chocolate, cookies,  or nuts by the handfuls, it’s got to stop. I have to wear a bathing suit in 112 days or so for crying out loud. Or earlier if I take the tot to the indoor pool.

I really shouldn’t complain too much. The weight from the pregnancy practically fell off up to a certain point, but there is that belly area that just won’t flatten. Breastfeeding helps, but being cooped up inside due to crappy weather doesn’t. Heck, I used to take the tot out for two walks a day prior to my pregnancy-induced aches and pains in the last trimester. And after the birth…lugging a newborn around in a stroller on streets that aren’t plowed well hasn’t been too exercise promoting either. And it’s just so friggin cold, you know?

The scar tissue from the c-section sticks out a bit. This is the second time I had a section, so THAT probably doesn’t help make my belly look slim and trim either. I’m just so annoyed. Nothing else seems f.a.t. on me. All my pre-pregnancy clothes fit. Except the pants. In the zipper area. Not the rear. Not the legs. Just. The. Stomach.

It’s so annoying.

But can someone tell me please how I’m supposed to get some happy energy around 3 pm when I’m tired enough to fall over? Chocolate, home-made cookies or brownies with lots of nuts, even some cream filled store-bought cannoli is what I REALLY want…and have been consuming like the end of the world is near.

One is never enough.

But I digress. The picture at the top of the post is of a Quinoa salad I made plenty of times last summer. And again recently. I got the idea from here. But I make my own recipe, and each time, I change one, or several ingredients. In the summer, for example, I use whatever fresh herbs I happen to have growing in my own garden, like parsley, chives, even young swiss chard leaves. Recently, I used store-bought fresh dill. My friend next door, the author of the Vegan Visitor, used fennel froths. If you’re really desperate, snip some regular lettuce leaves into it.

Quinoa is a grain that I can obtain from the Bulk Barn for cheap. It’s organic and contains more protein than any other grain. Protein is what I need during my slump, not refined sugar, or carbs.

So my plan is to eat this protein-rich salad more often for lunch, and then maybe forgo the sweets at 3. Or, if I still must have a sweet, STOP at ONE.

Can’t guarantee it’ll work, but I’ll give it a try.