Roasted Beet Quinoa with Honey Vinaigrette

Now that Spring is trying to show it’s face around here I’m wondering if my current obsession with roasted vegetables will start to slow down.  I am so in love with roasted veggies I don’t know if I’ll just let them go as the weather gets warmer or if I will tough out having the oven on no matter what.  Hmmm.

I suppose time will tell!  Until then, here’s another recipe with my favourite roasted vegetable…beets.  This one is easy, nutritious, tasty and can work as either a side dish or a meal.  Personally I just heaped a bunch into a bowl and called it dinner. 

While writing this I’m trying to decide if this should be called a salad?  or more likely it’s a pilaf?  No, I mixed leafy greens into it?  That makes it a salad doesn’t it?  Can pilaf have leafy greens?

It’s tossed in vinaigrette so I suppose that solidifies it into the salad category.  Yes, quinoa salad.  We have a winner.

Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Goat Cheese, and Pine Nuts

Yields 4 side dishes, or 2-3 good sized meals

Ingredients:

• 1 medium beet, peeled, cubed and roasted
• 2 medium carrots, peeled, thickly sliced and roasted
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 6o grams (2 oz) soft goat cheese
• 2 cups assorted leafy greens (arugula and baby spinach are nice)
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• 1 cup dry quinoa, cooked in 1 1/2 cups of water

Honey Vinaigrette:

• 1 1/2 tbsp honey
• 1 tbsp grainy Dijon mustard
• 1/2 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1/4 tsp soy sauce
• 1/4 tsp dill
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Roast your veggies (toss in drizzle of olive oil and roast on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes).  While those are roasting, prepare your quinoa (bring to a boil, reduce to simmer for 10-12 minutes, let stand 5 minutes to absorb all water).
2. In a large bowl whisk all vinaigrette ingredients together.
3. To the bowl add the roasted veggies, then the greens, then the cooked quinoa.  The heat from the veggies and quinoa will help wilt the greens.  Add green onions and small chunks of goat cheese.  Stir carefully, being sure to get all dressing from the bottom of the bowl incorporated throughout the mixture. 
4. Sprinkle with pine nuts and serve.

Since I like it served warm maybe we can call it pilaf salad?  Whatever you call it, enjoy!  MyFitnessPal clocks this in at a lovely 330 calories if you do 4 servings.  So fill up your little blue bowl and go to town.  I sure did.

Do your tastes change with seasons?  Would you abandon your favourite roasted veggies in lieu of something more Summery?

Coconut Cauliflower Soup

Every single time I buy cauliflower I land up with at least half of a head just hanging out in my produce drawer waiting to die.  It used to be that a live-alone gal could buy some pre-cut cauliflower at the market but apparently those days are gone and whenever I need it I have to buy a whole one. 

Rather than taking my usual approach for near-dead veggies – tossing with olive oil and roasting – I decided to tackle my second favourite approach – create a healthy soup!

Cauliflower is easy to work with, low calorie, and it lends itself to pretty much any flavours.  Since I happen to have three cans of coconut milk in my cupboard it seemed only fitting these two ingredients should go together.  To round it out I added curry powder but I’m sure whatever your favourite handy herb is would work just as well.

Creamy Coconut Cauliflower Soup

Yields 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 large carrot, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced or grated
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 tbsp curry powder (or more depending on your taste)
• 3 cups cauliflower, chopped
• 3 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock
• 1 can (400ml) low calorie coconut milk
• salt & pepper
• optional garnish: kale chips, fresh parsley, chopped green onion

Directions:

1. In a large pot heat olive oil over medium heat.  Add carrots, celery and onions.  Stir and let cook until starting to sweat.  Add garlic, stir and let cook another minute or so.
2. Add flour, stir and let cook one minute.  Add curry powder, stir and cook another minute.  Add cauliflower and stir again.
3. Add about 1/2 cup of the chicken stock.  Just enough to bubble up and help scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pot.  Then add remaining chicken stock, cover and let cook until cauliflower begins to soften.
4. Stir in coconut milk and continue to cook until cauliflower reaches desired level of doneness (I like mine al dente).  Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Optional:  For a thicker soup blend half of the pot.  Easiest is to use an immersion/stick blender to puree right in the pot, but you can also scoop into a regular blender to puree and add it back.
6. Serve garnished with something green.  I opted for fresh made kale chips I had on hand which worked brilliantly, but a sprinkle of fresh herbs would do well too.

MyFitnessPal calculates this delicious, easy soup to be only 150 calories per serving (depending on the nutritional stats of your coconut milk).  It’s missing a protein component so pair it with some cheese, lean meat, or hummus for a lovely lunch.

While tweeting about making this soup my friend Shirls commented that she hates cauliflower. I was appalled. Who hates cauliflower?  Do you?

Wednesday is not Monday

What day is it? Well, somehow it turned out to be Wednesday and I’m just now sharing Monday with you.  Also somehow I have no breakfast photos for you.  And by somehow I mean because Michael fed me while I was still half asleep and my foggy brain didn’t even register consuming food let alone digging out a camera.

It’s OK though because my lunch and dinner were far prettier than our leftover French Toast with jam anyway.

Bringing back the bigass salad!  I made a trek to Root Cellar, stocked up on gorgeous fresh veggies, raided my cupboard for some black beans, and splurged on a store bought salad dressing for something fun.

In the big silver bowl: red leaf lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, red pepper (all LOCAL!!), black beans, Citrus Honey Poppy Seed dressing, and a handful of Tostitos Multigrain Scoops.

Found on sale:  Rainier cherries.  BC for the win.

Michael bought six bags of homemade kale chips from a co-worker and sent me home with one.  I now understand why so many bloggers make these…interesting, delicious in a out of the box kind of way, and super duper healthy.

For dinners this week I really wanted to focus on extra veggies, reasonable portions, lean proteins, and meals that would make leftovers.

…funky mushroom :)

When I found boneless, skinless chicken on sale a stir-fry plan was born.

I whipped up a batch of my favourite homemade go-to stir-fry sauce and added it to a pan of sautéed chicken, zucchini, mushrooms, and onions with garlic and ginger.

Sprinkled with pan-toasted sesame seeds and served over brown rice.

After dinner I settled in to watch terrible reality TV (I see having cable is certainly going to help rot my brain…I love it) and eventually made my way to the freezer for a blue Creamsicle.

If I’m going to be watching inane things like Bachelor–freaking–Pad I’d better start finding healthier dessert alternatives.  I’m going to need all of the brain food I can get.

Dragon's Tongue

Day Two back on track = fairly successful.  A few little snacks creeped their way in, but nothing worth worrying about.  So far.  :)

Breakfast was a rushed bowl of yogurt and berries...which apparently escaped the camera lens.  I'm sure you know what that looks like!

Lunch featured some deeeelish crack hummus with tomatoes on a toasted sammich thin...

With Black Forest Ham and pickles, and shelling peas...

I saw a Sabra hummus commercial the other night.  Apparently it's pronounced "sah-bra" and all this time I've been saying "say-bra".  Who knew?

After lunch snackie...two sweet and juicy BC plums.  So juicy I ate them over the sink with juice running down my arm.  Nom!

Pre-workout treat...Chocolaty Peanut Butter Honeybar.  Deeeelish.  Sort of reminded me of an extra chewy Haystack Cookie. 

In addition to planning my meals and watching my food intake more closely, I have promised myself that I will get back to a proper workout routine.  Throughout all of the moving and traveling I lost my workout mojo...and if it wasn't for the Group Training sessions twice a week I'd literally be sitting on my behind all of the time. 

This is not me.

So tonight I hauled myself off to the gym right after work...with enough time for a 20 minute treadmill run (2 minutes running vs 1 minute walking) before a 60 minute yoga class.

My body is already thanking me.  Even if it did seem 8000 times harder than it would have just two months ago. 

Dinner was easy-peasy.  I had thawed out too much chicken when making the Red Thai Curry this weekend so I whipped up a batch of Coconut Chicken Strips (using my Coconut Shrimp method) and threw them in the freezer.

Baked off a few in the oven and paired with a simple salad and these way-cool looking Dragon's Tongue beans I picked up at the market.

Steamed up those beans and served simply with a smidge of real butter and s&p.  Sadly, they were a lot more bitter than I expected...so I only ate about half of them.  Bummer.

Dinner was late, so dessert was just a few spoonfuls of ice cream to quiet my sweet tooth after my long, hot, epsom salt filled bath.  Caught up on some much overdo blog reading and dragged my tired bum to bed.

Hawaiian Style

Really people?  No suggestions?  I think maybe you are all asleep at the wheel enjoying your Summer.  :)  Seriously, INSPIRE ME!!!

As you read this post you'll see what I mean.  Little imagination going on here.

Coffee and a banana blueberry muffin.  OK, that's slightly creative in that I actually made those muffins last night. 

Lunch was a total cop-out.  In a struggle to find something with protein I grabbed the egg carton again.  Over easy on toast with herby cream cheese. 

  

At least I'm getting very good at frying an egg.  It's all about the non-stick pan and the awesome spatula I stole from my Mom.

And at least I introduced a different fruit.  Amazingly juicy and sweet cantaloupe!

I suppose the creativity it takes to turn cold coffee into iced coffee isn't something to be sneezed at.  The only problem I've found with French Press coffee is that often it's cold by the time I want my second cup...and I don't have a microwave.  So I poured it over ice and added vanilla Almond Fresh.  It ain't no vanilla soy milk (not creamy enough) but still did the trick.

Pre-workout snack...another muffin...this time with PB.

Tia tried to kill us again tonight at Group Training.  Apparently complaining about jump squats earned us extra varieties of squats and lunges this week.  I guess that's what we get for telling her we want to work on our booties.  :)

Crack hummus is back in da house!  All is right in my world again. 

A bite of toasted bliss held me over while dinner baked away.

The star of tonight's dinner show...purple carrots!  Local, fresh, crispy, and supah-fun colours!

Turned into carrot fries.  Simply quartered and tossed with a drizzle of olive oil, laid on a baking sheet, and sprinkled with s&p.  Baked at 375 for about 30 minutes, tossing a few times during cooking.

Veggies are just better when they are a fun colour!  Served alongside a store-bought treat.  "Hawaiian" Chicken Cordon.

Yup, that's a perfectly sized chicken breast stuffed with cream cheese, ham and pineapple.  Oh lordy.  I'd recreate it with less cheese, more ham and maybe some dijon for zing. 

Guess I did find a meal suggestion today!  No thanks to you guys. ;)