Gosh, I have been lazy of late. Only 1 post in the whole week which is over and a new week begins tomorrow. As it gets colder in Perth, the layers of fat that have built up on me have made me lethargic. I cannot be bothered to move from the couch when I am home and have been procrastinating doing up a blog post for a few days now.
However one cannot procrastinate forever and here I am back to my blog trying to think of words and food to entice the readers to my blog and make them stop and take a minute to read it.
Even though I cook everyday, I tend to run out of ideas on what to blog about more often then not. I know I need to gather my thoughts and plan my posts more often (Not very smart for a serial planner am I).
So while I figure out how to get more organized, I made this very easy and simple warm Quinoa salad for dinner, tossing any left over vegetables I had in my fridge in the warm oven to roast to give the Salad some body.
Quinoa is a wonder grain and is widely popular now due to its high Iron and Fiber content. Quinoa in its natural state has a coating of bitter-tasting Saponin making it bitter and unpalatable. Therefore it is extremely important that it is soaked in Water for sometime and washed well before you cook it, otherwise you will never enjoy it. It is rice like in texture and goes decently well with most Indian curries or as a Salad.
Everything I cooked for this Salad was cooked and assembled under 40 minutes apart from the Quinoa which I soaked for 3 hours and washed several times very carefully. If you want a vegetarian version of this Salad you can skip the Salmon and add a Potato b
urger. It was surprisingly delicious and tasty when done.
I have divided the recipe into 3 sections which I have cooked side by side and then just assembled on a plate.
Recipe (Cooking time 40 minutes, Serves 2)
For the Quinoa:
1 Cup Quinoa soaked in water for 2 – 3 hours and washed really well
Salt to taste
Juice of half a lemon
2 cups water to cook the Quinoa
Add 2 cups water for 1 cup Quinoa in a thick bottomed vessel and let it cook like you would cook rice. Add the salt during the cooking and Lemon juice once the Quinoa is cooked and you fluff it with a fork.
Roasted Vegetables (you can use any vegetables you want here)
1 medium sized Zucchini cut into bite sized pieces
1 medium Pumpkin cut into bite sized pieces
1 carrot cut into bite sized pieces
Olive Oil to drizzle on the vegetables while roasting them
Salt & Pepper to taste
Put the chopped vegetables on a roasting tray and drizzle the Olive oil. Salt and Pepper and roast at 180 C in a oven till done.
Roasted Salmon
2 Salmon Fillets
Olive Oil to drizzle
Salt & Pepper to taste
Juice of half a Lemon
Just 20 minutes before your Vegetables are roasted, marinate the Salmon with the Olive Oil, Salt, Pepper and Olive oil for only 10 minutes. Add the Salmon in the roasting pan with the vegetables and cook for 7 – 10 minutes till done.
Assembly:
Fluff up the Quinoa with a fork and add it on a tray, adding the Roasted Vegetables and mixing them gently. Plate individual portions of the Salad and put the Salmon on top. Serve with a glass of Chilled White wine. It cannot get easier then this.
