cold quinoa salad

Summer is not over yet! (I won't believe it!) Though this morning is the first time I've seen rain in California for a couple of months, the temperature remains warm. The sunshine will be back soon, I'm positive (and hopeful).

I made this salad last week when we were having a stretch of hot days and I couldn't stand heating up the house or eating anything warm. It was one of those occasions when I didn't know exactly what I would make when I started the process - I scanned the cupboards and fridge to figure out what we had on hand that could be turned into a meal. I was hesitant about the nuts and sundried tomatoes at first, but went ahead and included them. I was glad I did: both brought great flavor and texture diversity to the dish. I will definitely make this again.

One thing I realized as I picked the labels for this post is that this is only my second post featuring quinoa. I find that surprising, since it's the grain component of our meals on a fairly regular basis. Quinoa is one of those foods I wasn't familiar with prior to moving to California. I encountered it for the first time at Google and have been a big fan ever since. The Complete Guide to Nutritional Health says that quinoa is "arguably the most nutritious of the grains". It contains vitamins E, B2, B3, calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper, iron, zinc, fiber, and protein. Bonus: it's gluten free. It has a slightly nutty flavor and can be used in place of rice in most dishes. I think I'd go so far as to classify it as my favorite grain. Stay tuned for more quinoa posts.

Cold Quinoa Salad

Serves 3-4

1 c. red or white quinoa

2 c. water

3 Tbsp. Italian parsley, chopped

1 Tbsp. mint leaves, finely chopped

1 pint cherry tomatoes

1 cucumber, sliced then quartered

1 handful pistachios

1/4 c. kalamata olives, pitted and halved

1/4 c. sundried tomatoes, chopped

balsamic vinegar and olive oil

feta (if desired)

Ahead of time: Bring the quinoa and water to a boil in a medium pot over high heat. Stir, cover, and reduce heat to simmer for 15 minutes, or until water is absorbed. Cool in fridge until you are ready to make salad. Alternative: if you're making the salad all at once, spread the quinoa on a plate and stick it in the freezer while you chop and combine other ingredients.

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Drizzle balsamic and oil over salad (I used about 3 Tbsp. of each) and mix well. Top with feta if desired.

fried green tomatoes

We are absolutely overrun with tomatoes at the moment. There are the sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and early girls that I have growing in pots along the side of the house; both plants are on the smallish side and are producing about the right amount for JR and myself as long as they are incorporated into at least one meal per day. But then there are the monstrous bushes that our neighbors planted along the other side of the house that we promised to help eat. That amounts to a lot of tomatoes! I've been keeping my eyes peeled for interesting new ways to use them.

This recipe was inspired by a recent post on VeganYumYum. Whereas the VeganYumYum's version of fried green tomatoes had an Italian twist, I decided to go in the Mexican direction. I de-veganized the recipe by adding eggs (I didn't have the powdered egg substitute on hand that was called for), added cumin and red pepper flakes to the batter, and topped with avocado and cherry tomatoes from the garden. I served the tomatoes with a side of black beans. Tasty!

Fried Green Tomatoes

Serves 2

3 under-ripe medium green tomatoes (should be firm to the touch)

3/4 c. corn meal

1/4 c. flour (I used a gluten free flour mix to make the recipe gluten free)

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cumin

2 pinches red pepper flakes

1 egg

1/4 c. milk (I used rice milk)

oil for frying (I used coconut oil)

avocado & cherry tomatoes for topping

Core tomatoes and slice into 1/2 inch slices. Lay on paper towels and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper.

Mix dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Set aside. Whisk egg and milk together in a separate medium bowl. 

Heat 2 Tbsp. oil in a large skillet over medium heat.

Dredge tomato slices one by one into egg mixture then dry mixture (pressing to make sure it sticks). Fry about 3 minutes per side until golden brown. Depending on size of your skillet, you may need to do this in a couple of batches, rinsing pan (carefully, as it's hot and will steam) and adding more oil in between batches. Drain tomatoes on a paper towel.

Stack tomatoes on a plate. Top with avocado slices and sliced cherries. Enjoy!

caramel pear crumble

Our neighbor across the street has two pear trees growing in front of her house. Last week, when Romeo the pug and I were returning home from a walk, she was up on a ladder picking the juicy ripe fruit. I asked if she could use any help and she said her only issue is that there are some of the pears are out of her reach. I graciously offered up my taller-than-neighbor husband to help with this issue. JR went up on the ladder. We were sent home with all of the pears that he picked. 

When additional pears arrived in the CSA box, I decided I needed to get serious about doing something with our growing pile of them. The current issue of Gourmet had what I thought was a beautiful pear on its cover, so I figured that would be a good place to start (upon reading more closely, I learned that the picture was actually of a quince...which now makes me want to seek quince out because I don't think I've eaten one before, and it does look beautiful!). I did locate a pear recipe in the mag, but it was for pear pie and I didn't feel like making pie crust (I have a history of mine never turning out quite right).

Still, the pear butterscotch pie recipe that I read about worked as good inspiration. What's easier than pie? Crumble. What's a good replacement for butterscotch that I have on hand? Condensed sweetened milk caramel. From there, I started playing with ideas and ingredients. Here's what resulted:

Caramel Pear Crumble

4 medium pears, peeled and thinly sliced

1 1/2 c. oat or whole wheat flour

1 1/2 c. quick cooking rolled oats

1/2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. butter, melted

1 can sweetened condensed milk caramel

1/2 c. walnuts, chopped

Combine flour, oats, and sugar in a medium bowl. Stir in butter to create a crumbly mixture. Set aside 1 cup. Press the remaining mixture into an ungreased baking dish (I used the small oval Le Crueset; a pie dish or 8" square pan would also work).

Arrange pears over the crust. Spoon caramel over pears. Sprinkle with reserved crumble mix and walnuts. 

Bake in a 350 degree oven 30 minutes, or until top is golden brown.

We enjoyed ours warm and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was tasty, but very sweet - if I were to make it again I think I would try either using less or omitting completely the brown sugar in the crust. Even sugary sweet, however, I thought it was pretty tasty!

stuffed patty pan squash

You'll recall that I recently had a fascination with stuffed peppers. I've moved on. To squash. 

Patty Pan squash are little, yellow, spaceship-looking orbs. They've shown up in our weekly produce delivery for a couple weeks in a row now, so I've been thinking about creative things to do with them. This meal came together based on what I had in the fridge and pantry. It's strange how often those are the ones that turn out the best! I'll definitely make this again. Here's what I did:

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

Serves 2-3

olive oil

6 patty pan squash

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 handfuls of spinach

1/2 c. ricotta

1 egg

2 Tbsp. parmesan, grated

2 Tbsp. fresh basil, chopped

1/2 tsp. fresh oregano, chopped

1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes

1/4 c. tomato sauce

2 oz. mozzarella, grated

Wash squash. Drop in a large pot of boiling water. Reduce heat and cook covered 15 minutes, or until tender. Drain and allow to cool. Slice the top off each squash and scoop out pulp, leaving 1/4" shell (you can slice a little off of the bottom as well to make a flat surface so the squash will sit flat if desired). Chop the pulp.

Cook onion and garlic in olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add spinach and squash and cook 1 minute. Let cool.

Combine egg and ricotta in a medium bowl. Stir in parmesan, basil, oregano, and spinach mixture.

Arrange the squash shells in an oiled shallow baking pan. Fill shells with filling. Top each with a generous spoonful of sauce and top with grated mozzarella. Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

Similar to the stuffed peppers I featured a few weeks ago, a spanish or mexican twist on stuffed squash (I'm thinking polenta, black beans, salsa...) would be very tasty as well. Let me know what you think!

pasta with walnut pesto and tomatoes

A bunch of basil has become a weekly standard in the CSA box. It's also growing like crazy in a pot on my front porch. I'm not complaining - this means one of my weekend activities of late has become making pesto, which I love. To my surprise, I've found that I like it even better with walnuts instead of pine nuts and no parmesan. This tasty pesto plus some pasta and other veggies makes a satisfying and beautiful, simple meal. Here's how it goes:

Pasta with Walnut Pesto and Tomatoes

Serves 2

6 oz. pasta, cooked al dente (make this dish gluten free with rice pasta)

1/4 - 1/2 c. walnut pesto*

2 medium heirloom tomatoes, cut into pieces

* My original post is for spinach walnut pesto - use 2 cups basil and omit the spinach for a more traditional taste.

Drain the cooked pasta and return to pan. Add pesto and tomatoes and stir until combined. That's it! If you make the pesto ahead, this meal comes together in the 10 minutes or so it takes to cook the pasta. The perfect weeknight meal!

gluten free "sugar" cookies

You've perhaps noticed that I haven't been posting very regularly lately. I'm going to blame it on summer. My preference over the past couple of weeks has been to spend my free time in the sunshine, rather than in front of the computer. Can you blame me? This means my 'to post' pile has been growing steadily over the past couple of weeks. This morning, I was flipping through the notebook in which I take notes on recipes, deciding which to post today. I chose this one because the star-shaped cookies seemed appropriate to celebrate today's Independence Day holiday.

When Marika and I have our weekly Bachelorette nights, one of our staples are Gianna's cookies. They are packaged sugar cookies that come in a variety of shapes (sharks, strawberries, footballs) and are sold at the local Mollie Stone's grocery. They are butter, sugary, and delicious. And they're made with white flour, white sugar, and probably a host of other non-nutritive items that I'm trying to avoid. So I set out to makeover Gianna's cookies into a replacement treat for our weekly get together.

I started with a sugar cookie recipe in one of my cookbooks and started substituting things. The resulting cookies turned out really tasty. The big differences between these cookies and your standard sugar cookies is the omission of gluten and refined sugar. Here's what I did:

Gluten Free "Sugar" Cookies

1 1/2 c. gluten-free baking flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)

1 c. oat flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 c. unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 c. agave

1 tsp. vanilla

1 egg

Frosting:

2 Tbsp. cream cheese (I used vegan cream cheese, which worked well)

1 tsp. pure maple syrup

1 Tbsp. raw sugar (optional)

Combine dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Set aside. In another bowl, cream butter together with agave nectar. Add vanilla and egg and beat until combined. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix well. Add additional flour if needed.

Form dough into a ball. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Remove dough from fridge. Sprinkle counter with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out dough to 1/4-1/2" thickness. Use cookie cutter to cut shapes from the dough and place on cookie sheet. Bake in 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes, until golden. Remove and allow to cool completely on wire rack.

Whisk cream cheese and maple syrup together in a small bowl until totally combined and smooth. Frost cookies. If desired, sprinkle with raw sugar.

Have a safe and happy fourth!

amazing spinach and ricotta pizza

My cleanse is officially over! I made it through 4 weeks of no dairy, gluten, refined sugar, meat, caffeine, and alcohol (the cleanse I was following is outlined in The Complete Guide to Nutritional Health). I feel terrific - I'm sleeping better, have more energy throughout the day, am more motivated to exercise, and not really craving any of the items I've cut out. Not really craving, however I did complete my cleanse pretty excited to eat some cheese (and chocolate)!

In fact, I've been feeling so good throughout the cleanse that I've decided to continue to eliminate gluten, meat, and refined sugar from my diet. I'm also going to treat dairy as a special treat (like brie and crackers on Bachelorette night), rather than incorporate it into almost every meal, as had become the habit prior to the past month.

My first special treat post-cleanse was this pizza. If you've been following this blog for awhile, you may recall that I've posted before about the dismal pizza options on the peninsula. So when I want good pizza, I've taken to making my own. This obviously also lets you have complete control over the ingredients that go into the pizza, which meant in this case that I was able to test out a gluten-free crust. (You could certainly make this pizza with a non-gluten free crust as well.)

I was optimistic, but skeptical that a gluten-free pizza crust would be as good as a traditional crust. To improve my odds of success, rather than play around with combining various gluten-free flours, I decided to go with a packaged mix. I've had great luck in the past with Bob's Red Mill flours (you may recall the oat flour from my recent post, vegan gluten-free date newtons), so I went with Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free Pizza Crust Mix (which even comes with yeast, so all you need to add is water).

The crust turned out awesome. I'm not sure if it's because this was the first time in a month that I'd ingested any dairy, but I'd list this pizza in the top 5 (maybe even top 3?) of best pizzas that I've ever eaten. It's based on a recipe from the July 2009 edition of Cooking Light, to which I made a few minor tweaks. Here's what I did:

Amazing Spinach & Ricotta (gluten-free!) Pizza

Serves 4

olive oil

dough for one large pizza (as mentioned, mine was gluten-free)

1 c. marinara sauce

2 c. baby spinach

3 Tbsp. freshly grated parmesan

5 oz. mozzarella, grated

1/3 c. ricotta cheese

2 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced

about 1/4 c. fresh basil, chopped into thin strips

1/4-1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes

Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Lightly oil a perforated pizza pan. Place dough on a lightly floured surface. Roll into a circle. Transfer to prepared pan. (The original recipe calls for you to roll the dough into a 12-inch pizza. The pizza dough mix I was using allowed me to get the crust to 16 inches. I also followed the cooking instructions on the package - which I don't have any longer or would post here as well - which meant some pre-baking and a slightly longer overall cooking time than outlined below.)

Brush dough with olive oil. Spread sauce evenly over dough, leaving a 1/4 inch border. Top with spinach, parmesan, and mozzarella (in that order). Spoon teaspoonfuls of ricotta over mozzarella.

Bake for 12 minutes or until mozzarella melts and crust browns. Let stand for 5 minutes. Top with tomato slices, fresh basil, and red pepper flakes. Cut into 8 pieces. Enjoy!

veggie veggie enchiladas

I made these enchiladas last week. Seeing the picture makes me wish that I had a serving right now! (It must be time to make dinner...) They are so tasty, you won't even notice that they are vegan. That's right - an enchilada without cheese. Or sour cream. I honestly didn't miss the dairy one bit. Here's what I did:

Veggie Veggie Enchiladas

Serves 4

olive oil

1 red onion

1 red bell pepper

1 medium yellow squash

1 medium zucchini

1 Tbsp. lime juice

2 tsp. cumin

15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained

20 oz. of your favorite homemade or prepared enchilada sauce

10-12 small corn tortillas

1/4 c. cilantro, chopped

1/2 avocado, sliced

Dice onion, squash, zucchini, and pepper into smallish pieces. Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook and stir until translucent. Add the pepper and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, for 2 minutes. Add the squash and zucchini. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until veggies are tender. Add beans, lime juice, and cumin. Stir until well mixed. Turn off heat.

Spread a couple of spoonfuls of sauce in the bottom of a glass baking pan. One at a time, fill each corn tortilla with the veggie/bean mixture, wrap into an enchilada, and place into pan. When pan is full, cover with sauce. 

Cover with foil and bake in 375 degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 10 minutes longer for crispy edges. Top individual portions with chopped cilantro and avocado slices.

gluten-free vegan date newtons

No wheat and no dairy? Then what's in these? you might ask. Magic. Delight. The best newton I've ever had. I'm not kidding - though I was very skeptical my science experiment in the kitchen would turn out well, it totally did.

The thought process went into motion when I realized that I had a lot of dates in the fridge (some leftover from the grocery, which needed to be consumed so I could justify buying the fresh, beautiful ones from the date guy at the local farmers' market). Then a couple of days later, I was walking down the cookie aisle at the grocery (probably a bad idea, I admit, given that I'm in the middle of a cleanse and allowed no refined sugar). I saw Newman's Organic Newtons and had a brief moment of excitement when I thought I might be able to eat them. But alas, the crust was made with flour. That wouldn't do.

I think probably a few more days passed. I still had newtons on the brain. And dates in the fridge. Suddenly, I realized that I could make my own date newtons, which would allow me to sweeten with whatever I wanted and omit the wheat and dairy. Perfect!

To come up with this recipe, I looked up several fig newton recipes online and then started thinking about substitutions... molasses and agave in place of the sugar... oat flour* instead of wheat... dates instead of some of the figs (though I had dried figs on hand, so I threw some of them in, too).

*Besides the actual cookies, oat flour was my favorite new discovery in this recipe. As you would probably expect, it's made from ground oats and tastes like it in a really good way. It's gluten free. I thought the flavor combination of the oat flour and the molasses was amazing and is one I'll definitely try again. Also the texture of the resulting cookie turned out just as you would expect with wheat flour.

Gluten-Free Vegan Date Newtons

Makes about 30 newtons

filling:

1 c. dates, pitted

1 c. dried figs

2 Tbsp. almonds

1/4 c. lemon juice

1/4 c. pomegranate juice

crust:

2 1/2 c. oat flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. sea salt

1/2 c. agave nectar

1/4 c. molasses

1/4 c. coconut oil, melted

1 Tbsp. vanilla

2 Tbsp. rolled oats

To make filling: Process dates, figs, and almonds in a food processor until they begin to form a paste. Add lemon juice and pomegranate juice and continue to process until you have a smooth paste.

To make the outside of the newton: Combine dry (except rolled oats) and wet ingredients in separate bowls. Mix wet into dry. Press half of crust mixture into bottom of an oiled 8-inch square pan. Spread the date mixture evenly over the crust. Smooth remaining crust over the filling. Sprinkle rolled oats over the top.

Bake 25-30 minutes in a 375 degree oven, until lightly browned.

Once cool, cut into squares. Enjoy!