Cauliflower Quiona Salad

Last week at work I attended a retirement lunch.  The lunch was held at White Spot. TRAUMA.  The invite email had a link to their menu and I discovered they had some interesting salads, so I thought maybe this won’t be too bad.

IT WAS BAD. REAL BAD. The cauliflower on the salad tasted like they didn’t know how to defrost frozen vegetables.

However, the traumatizing experience of eating White Spot salad inspired me to get creative with salads at home (mostly just to burn the flavour of white spot food out of my mouth forever).

I made a cauliflower, quinoa salad with leafy greens, and it was lovely. My cauliflower was well cooked and did not send shivers down the person ingesting its spine (I’m looking at you White Spot).  Usually, when I have had quinoa salad the ratio of quinoa to vegetables has been equal, but in this salad the quinoa is more of a top garnish which is actually a really nice way to use it!

Salad

• 1/3 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup edamame (I used frozen)
• 1 pack leafy greens
• 2 TB chopped almonds
• 1 cup chopped cauliflower
• 1/4 tsp tumeric, paprika  and salt

Dressing

• 1/4 balsamic vinegar
• 2 TB honey mustard
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

1. Steam the heads of cauliflower for around 5 minutes, you don’t want it to become to mushy.
2. Fry the cauliflower in 1/2 TB coconut oil with the tumeric, paprika and salt. Add your chopped almonds, and cook until nicely toasted. Set aside to cool.
3. Bring 1/3 cup of quinoa with 2/3 cups of water to a boil, and then let simmer for 10-15 minutes.
4. Cook your edamame according to package.
5. Mix all the ingredients of the dressing together and adjust flavours to please your taste buds
6. In a salad bowl prepare the greens, then add the quinoa, edamame, and cauliflower mix. Add the dressing to taste.

 

 

 

 

 

Bright Beet Smoothie!

Once upon a time, I used to make smoothies like every day, and it was great, but it was also a phase.  My smoothie phase ended a long time ago, because usually you find a type you like and then you fall into a smoothie rut.  I got bored of smoothies and moved on. Something has changed though, because today I made a truly great, truly excellent smoothie (an awesome smoothie creator does not need to be modest) with some unexpected ingredients.  It started the way literally all of my interesting food creations do- I needed to make something with veggies that were getting a bit beyond their best (squishy beets are gross= eww).  So I decided to blend my old beets (do not ask why) then I just started adding ingredients that might belong in a smoothie and the result was really fucking good. ALSO beets contain phytonutrients called betalains which provide antioxidants, and can act as an anti-inflammatory, all the more reason to enjoy.

• 2 small beets (peeled and chopped)
• 1 cup (240 ml) frozen berries
• a banana
• 1/3 cup apple sauce (80 ml)
• 2 TB (30 ml) almond or peanut butter
• 1 TB (15 ml) chia seeds
• 1 TB (15 ml) grated unsweetened coconut

Blend and enjoy!

Krunchy Kale

For a Christmas stocking stuffer I got a little bag of kale chips, (man those folks know what I like), the chips were super good, super food.  I could have eaten like 9 packs of these kale chips, but store bought kale chips are very expensive, so I decided to shamelessly rip off their idea! Therefore, I made coconut curry kale chips, and mine were even better than the store bought ones (winning), I then went on to make them again the very next day!

Kale chips are super easy to create making it one of the best ways to healthy snack!

• 1 bunch kale
• 1 TB coconut oil (melted)
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 hand full dehydrated coconut flakes
• 1 teaspoon hemp seeds
• 1 TB nutritional yeast

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Remove the soft leafy parts of the kale from the stem and then tear into chip sized pieces.
3. Add the melted oil and other ingredients to the kale. Mix well
4. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.  Try not the have the kale overlapping on the baking tray as they will get properly crispy if they are layered.

Brussels Sprout with Roasted Tamari Pumpkin Seeds

This week I started working after being unemployed for a period of time (it was a long time no judgement ok).  Now I’m going to be working straight for around 17 (you should probably kill me).  I just want to stay home and cook all day! Ugh, life be like.  One thing working has made me realize is I need to be really organized about with preparing my meals.  Some people are chill to just pick up some food where ever they are, but when you are a health freak in today’s prepackaged, zero nutritional value world that is not really an option.  Since thinking about what I’m going to eat for lunch is one of the only things that keeps me going through a morning of work; I need to make sure it’s really delicious.  So the other day I made brussel sprout salad with tamari roasted pumpkin seeds, and it actually made my morning go by so slowly because all I could think about was when I would get to eat.

My favourite way to enjoy brussel sprouts is to roast them, because boiled brussels are straight up gross, as a kid I wouldn’t even look at brussel sprouts at Christmas I was like potatoes come at me but nowwww I want them both. 

• 2 cups brussels halved
• 1 teaspoon coconut oil + 1 teaspoon for the pumpkin seeds
• sprinkle of salt or red pepper flakes
• 1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds
• 1 tablespoon tamari (Tamari is a type of soy sauce in case you were wondering, you can use normal soy sauce instead but I find the flavour of tamari to be the best.)
• alfalfa sprouts (optional)

1. Preheat your oven to 400F (200C)
2. Cut your brussels in half, and combine with coconut oil and salt. Roast for 30-40 minutes.
3. Heat a pan with coconut oil, when it is hot add pumpkin seeds and tamari. Cook for around 5 minutes or until the seeds are golden
4. When the brussels are cooked combine with the pumpkin seeds and alfalfa sprouts!
5. Eat lunch and make everyone who work with jealous

This recipe is really, really easy as obviously evident from reading it, but it is a definite winner.

SPRING ROLLS

Oh my god guys, I am so excited, I made spring rolls! I did not think I could pull this recipe off, but I damn well did! I am really overly excited about this, per usual as food is the only thing that really makes me excited.

Party in my mouth

I was not even going to try and make spring rolls, I was going to attempt dumplings, but in the grocery store I could only find spring roll pastry and not dumpling shells, so I was like, close enough.  Now, just to clarify, I usually try to make everything at home, but one time I made beautiful dumplings with homemade shells, and they were awful, and weird and like wayyyyyy to chewy, so this time I realized I needed some store bought wrappers.

Now I looked up how to make spring rolls, and I did not like any of the recipes that I found, so I decided I would do my own thing and I really enjoyed the way it turned out!

What you need:

• one package spring roll wrappers
• coconut oil (for cooking)
• 4 small grated carrots (or 2 large)
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) sprouted mung beans (or any type of sprout)
• 1/2 (120 ml) pickled cabbage (I made my own and you can find the recipe on this blog! You can also use store bought or raw cabbage)
• 6 (approx.) bok choy leaves shredded
• 1 tsp (5ml) miso paste
• 1 Tb (15ml) tamari soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp (2.5ml) salt and pepper (please do not leave out the pepper it makes it a billion times better!)

1. Steam your grated carrot, shredded bok choy, and mung beans for 10 minutes or until softened, if you are using raw cabbage you should include it in the steaming, but if you are using pickled cabbage leave it separate.
   

   Ingredients

2. Mix the cooked vegetables with the pickled cabbage.  Add the tamari, miso, salt and pepper to the vegetables and thoroughly mix so everything is evenly distributed.
   

   mix

3. Peel apart some of your spring roll pastry.  Lay one piece on a flat surface, scoop about a one tablespoon sized amount of the filling into the middle of the wrapper.
   

   Wrapper with a scoop of filling

   

   Wrapper with folded sides

    

   Fold the sides across each other, and then fold over the end pieces creating a sealed rectangle, future spring roll.

   

   Future spring roll

4. Heat a frying pan or wok at medium heat with a small amount of coconut oil (or oil of your choice).  When the pan is hot cook the spring rolls until golden on both sides.  When you are cooking the spring rolls it is really nice the veg is already cooked, because then you only have to worry about frying the wrapper.  These are not classic spring rolls but they are 100% delicious so give them a try!
   

   Finished spring rolls!