Use Your Booty: Barley Salad with Burrata

I meant to to get this post up before this holiday weekend started. This salad is a great healthy, vegetarian, colorful side dish that goes well alongside grilled meat. It also improves with age - so you can make it a day or two ahead. I fancied it up with a large chunk of burrata cheese - feel free to omit it if you prefer.

Black Barley Salad with Burrata

Serves about 8-10 as a side dish, makes a generous 4-6 main course servings.

I liked the richness added by the burrata - if you don't have any at hand, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese or ricotta salata would be great. Or go dairy-free and toss on slices of hard-boiled egg.

• 1 cup uncooked black barley or 4 cups cooked barley (or pearl barley or "regular" barley - this salad would also work with farro or wheatberries)
• 2-3 small zucchini, diced
• 2 large tomatoes, diced
• 2 handfuls purslane leaves
• 1 small onion, sliced into thin rounds
• red wine vinegar
• olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 8 ounces burrata, left whole (preferred) or torn into shreds

Cook the barley, if needed: pick through the uncooked grains to remove any stones or bits of twig or chaff. Place in saucepan and cover with water by two inches and bring to boil. Reduce heat to a simmer, add a healthy pinch of salt and cook until the grains are tender. This will take from 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the grain you're cooking and how old it is. Add more water as needed to keep the barley covered.

When the barley is cooked, drain it in a colander and set aside to cool.

Toss half of the cooked barley with the vegetables. Add more barley until you have the vegetable/grain ratio you like. (You may not use all of the barley. Any leftovers can be frozen for future use.)

Sprinkle the salad with red wine vinegar and a healthy glug or two of olive oil. Season to taste with more vinegar and oil and salt and pepper. Top the salad with burrata and serve.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Green Bean and Potato Pesto Salad

Yesterday was a red-letter day vegetable-wise: our first green beans of the season and the first corn! The corn needed no embellishment other than a gentle enrobing of butter, and I turned the beans into a salad. I had fresh pesto on hand from last week's basil so I prepared a Genoese-inspired potato and green bean salad.

Green Bean and Potato Pesto Salad

Serves 3-4

I didn't have any on hand, but this salad would even better with the addition of a handful of toasted pine nuts or walnuts added in at the end.

• 4 handfuls green beans, stem ends cut off, beans cut into 2" lengths (I used both green and yellow beans)
• 3 medium-sized red-skinned or Yukon gold potatoes cut into 1/2" dice
• 1/4 red onion sliced thin
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup pesto
• salt and pepper
• red wine or sherry vinegar

This is a little fussy, but you really need to cook the beans and potatoes separately to ensure they are cooked properly.

Fill a large bowl with very cold water.

Put a large saucepan of water on the stove and bring it to a boil. Salt the water well (2-3 healthy pinches). Put the beans in the water and boil for 2-3 minutes until they are bright green and tender. Using a slotted spoon or strainer, transfer the beans out of the boiling water and into the bowl of cold water. When cool, transfer the cooked beans to a mixing bowl.

Since I used yellow beans too, I then repeated this step with the yellow beans.

Bring the water back to a boil and then cook the potatoes until tender, about 7-10 minutes. Transfer the potatoes out of the boiling water and into the bowl of cold water. When cool, transfer them to the bowl with the beans.

Add the onions to the beans and potatoes.

Stir in the pesto, adding enough to sauce the vegetables well. Taste and add salt & pepper to taste. If the salad tastes a little flat, add vinegar, a few drops at a time, until the flavor is right for you.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Grilled Romaine

Here's another public service post to help you use up your bountiful basket of lettuce. Did you know you can grill lettuce? Romaine is your best bet for grilling - the floppy looseleaf lettuces just get soggy and well, floppier. Use those in lettuce soup or salads.

The method is easy. If your romaine head is really large (too much for you and your dining partners to consume in one sitting), peel off the outer leaves, reserving them for salads or sandwiches or some such thing. Then cut the head in half through the core. If the head is large, cut it into quarters.

Drizzle the cut sides of the lettuce with olive oil or a vinaigrette of your choice. Grill, cut side down, over medium-high heat. When the lettuce has grill marks and is gently charred on the edges, it's done. This will take about 3-5 minutes depending on the heat of your grill, the amount of oil you use and the size of the lettuce heads.

Before serving, drizzle the lettuces with a little vinaigrette or just drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and squeeze lemon over the top.

This is a great side dish for grilled dishes. We enjoy it with grilled meat or seafood and a grain salad on the side.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.

Use Your Booty: Wilted Greens Salad

I had heard from many former and current CSAers that a major part of my share would be greens, both bitter and salad. Well this share is no different. Fortunately, I adore greens (chard, kale, collards, mustard, etc., etc.) and cook with them all the time. One atypical treatment I like, especially in the summer, is wilting.

I wilt greens with heat all the time, but this method just uses salad dressing. You know how when you dress a salad, it gets all soft and wilty if you let it sit? That's basically what you're doing here, except the stiffer greens like chard or mustard respond well to this treatment: they don't get all slimy like lettuce would.

For this salad, I took a bunch of mustard greens, stripped the leaves from the stems, rolled 'em up and cut them into a chiffonade (fine strips). Then I tossed the greens with too much dressing (a basic olive oil and lemon vinaigrette) and let them sit. After about 20 minutes, they're all wilty and soft, sort of like they'd been cooked. We ate this salad alongside some great beef from our Arrowhead livestock share and a big bundle of shoestring potatoes.

I left this version very simple, but this salad is very nice if you add (after wilting) julienned carrots, peppers or cucumber, scallions or other herbs. And it's really nice if you add toasted pine nuts or pistachios to provide a contrast to the soft, smooth greens.

The one problem with this method is that the greens will continue to wilt and release moisture, so just drain off any liquid if they release too much and everything seems soggy.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share.

Quinoa Salad with Feta, Mint and Blood Oranges

This salad is being entered in one of this week's Food 52 contests: Your best recipe with feta, blood oranges and mint. You can check out all the entries in the contest here.

I used a mix of red and "regular" quinoa and chose to use pine nuts. I think pistachios would be really nice too. Another nice combo would use goat cheese and toasted hazelnuts and parsley instead of mint.

Quinoa Salad with Feta, Mint and Blood Oranges

Serves 4-6 as a side dish

Make this a main dish by topping it with a fried egg or topping it with some grilled chicken or sea scallops.

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 3 blood oranges
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted
• 1/4 cup chopped mint
• olive oil
• 3 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
• salt and pepper to taste

Make the quinoa: Rinse the quinoa in a mesh strainer. Bring the water and a pinch of salt to a boil in a small saucepan. Add the quinoa and reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes until quinoa is tender.

While the quinoa is cooking, prepare the oranges. Cut the peel off of two of the oranges and then cut them into bite-sized sections, removing any really fibrous bits. (If you know how to supreme an orange - do that.)

Combine the cooked quinoa, chopped or supremed oranges, shallots, pine nuts, and mint. Squeeze the juice of the other orange over the salad and drizzle it with olive oil (about 2-3 tablespoons). Gently stir in the feta cheese. Taste the salad and add salt and pepper to taste.

Easy Eating: White Bean Salad

I put this salad together for the Encased Meats Festival that Linsey over at Cake and Commerce hosted a few weeks ago. I wanted something to provide a contrast to a gyro-style sausage that I'd made. The creaminess of the white beans is set off really nicely by chunks of cherry tomatoes, Kalamata olives and dill. I used a simple red wine vinaigrette as a dressing but a lemon-based dressing would be great too.

I recommend that you cook your own beans for the salad if you can: they'll be a little creamier than canned and you'll be able to control the saltiness a little better. That said, if you want to use canned beans, go right ahead and feel no guilt about it. Of course, feel free to vary the ingredients based on what you have on hand.

This salad is best if you make it a few hours ahead. It makes a great side with grilled meat or vegetables. For an easy vegan dinner pair it with a green salad and a grilled portobello mushroom.

White Bean Salad
Serves 4-6

• 4 cups cooked white beans (about 1 1/2 cups dry beans cooked or 2 large cans of beans, rinsed and drained)
• 1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced in quarters
• 3/4 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and torn in halves
• 1 bunch of scallions, sliced
• handful of dill, chopped
• red wine or sherry vinegar
  
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

In a bowl, toss together the beans, tomatoes, olives, scallions and dill. Drizzle about 2 tablespoons vinegar and 3 tablespoons olive oil over the salad. Toss the salad and taste. Add salt and pepper as needed (if you're using canned beans, you might not need much salt). Add more vinegar or oil as needed to ensure the beans are well flavored and moistened with oil and vinegar.

Ugly but Good

Can we agree that sometimes really ugly food tastes pretty good? This lentil salad is a perfect entry into that category (in fact I just made a tag for it - ugly food deserves respect). It's another one of the dishes I made for the WBUR meet up. Clearly, even I wasn't enamored of its looks - this is the only picture I took of it.

Lentils are a great budget-conscious food. But they can also be jazzed up with some pretty elegant ingredients. In addition to lentils (just regular green ones from the supermarket), this salad contains roasted kohlrabi pieces, caramelized onions, parsley and feta cheese. It's seasoned with a toasted cumin and red wine vinaigrette.

Treat this recipe as more of a guideline. Hold back some lentils when you're mixing everything together - add more in as you: you want a nice blend of lentils and vegetables. You'll know when it looks right. Keep checking your seasoning: shoot for a nice contrast between salty and sour. If you're adding feta, keep that in mind and don't oversalt before you add it to the salad. To make this a full meal, add a hard boiled egg to each serving and serve the salad over or alongside a green salad with some pita bread or foccacia.

Lentil Salad with Kohlrabi and Caramelized Onions
Serves about 8

• 1 pound lentils (pick through them for stones and give them a good rinse before cooking them)
  
• 2 large onions, peeled and cut into thin slices
• 2-4 cups of "roastable" vegetables, cut in chunks (I used kohlrabi, but you could broccoli or butternut squash or peppers or mushrooms or what have you - left over cooked vegetables would be great in this)
• 1/2 - 1 cup chopped parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 pound feta (or goat cheese or farmer cheese)
• red wine vinegar
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Cook the lentils: In a large saucepan (the lentils will nearly double in volume) place the lentils are cover them with 2" of water. Add a generous pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer and cook until the lentils are tender. Depending on how old the lentils are, it will take between 30-45 minutes for them to cook. When they are cooked, drain them and set them aside.

Make the rest of the vegetables: Saute the sliced onions over medium heat until dark brown (not burned) and caramelized. Roast the chopped vegetables in a 400-degree oven until they are cooked through to your taste.

Put the onions and roasted vegetables in a large bowl with the parsley and cumin. Add half of the lentils and stir gently to combine. Add more lentils until you get the proportions you want. Drizzle the salad with vinegar and oil (about equal amounts of each). Sprinkle with salt and a good amount of freshly ground pepper. Add the feta and stir to combine. Taste and adjust for acid and salt as needed.

This is good right away, but also holds really well so you can make a day or so in advance. It tastes best at room temperature.

An Ugly, Easy, Delicious Dinner Salad

So this is not the prettiest thing I've ever put on a plate, but it's insanely easy to pull together and a great healthy, weeknight dinner.

All the ingredients in this lentil salad can be lovely prepared from scratch, however, you can get great results from jarred, bagged and canned ingredients. It could also be much prettier served over or alongside a green salad.

Easy Lentil Salad (as a main course for two)

• 2 cups of cooked lentils (make your own or use the precooked bagged ones from Trader Joe's)
• 1/3 cup of chopped roasted red and/or yellow peppers
• 1/3 cup of chopped hearts of palm or artichoke hearts
• handful of parsley, chopped
• 1 lemon
• olive oil
• salt and pepper

Gently mix the lentils, peppers, hearts of palm (or artichoke hearts) and parsley together. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the salad and drizzle the salad with olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Gently stir everything together.

Wow, tough huh? Even better, it tastes great after a night in the fridge, so it's a great make ahead for picnics, plane trips, and other such events.

Serve this with nice bread and a few pieces of cheese, or a hardboiled egg, or the aforementioned green salad. Vary the herbs and vegetable mix-ins to taste (another nice option is chopped beets and celery with chopped dill and sherry vinegar).

Warm Salad with Shrimp

This a post from my other blog, The Cookbook Challenge. This recipe fits the Cooking 4 the Week philosophy though so I wanted to make sure you got to see it too.

Biba's Taste of Italy: Recipes form the Homes, Trattorie & Restaurants of Emilia-Romagna by Biba Caggiano, copyright 2001
Warm Salad of Shrimp, Radicchio, Arugula and Balsamic Vinegar, page 44

The title of this book: Biba's Taste of Italy is a little misleading. This is really Biba's Taste of Emilia-Romagna. You will not be disappointed by this cookbook. Emilia-Romagna is the source of so many wonderful foodstuffs and dishes, there is something for everyone. Seafood from the coast? Linguine alla Bolognese (otherwise known as bolognese sauce)? Vegetables? Desserts? Check, check and check.

This recipe is a great example of how an interesting recipe doesn't have to be difficult. Wash greens, saute shrimp, make dressing, serve. We had this as an appetizer. To make this an entree salad, just double the amount of shrimp.

Warm Salad of Shrimp, Radicchio, Arugula and Balsamic Vinegar

• 1/2 head radicchio, torn into bite-sized pieces, washed and dried
• 3 cups arugula, torn into bite-sized pieces, washed and dried
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 16 medium shrimp (about 1/2 pound), shelled, deveined and dried
• 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup dry white wine

Toss the radicchio and arugula together and arrange them on four salad plates.

In a skillet large enough to hold the shrimp in one layer, saute the shrimp in the olive oil. When the shrimp has started to color, pour the balsamic vinegar and wine over the shrimp and add a pinch of salt (the liquid will sputter and spit, be careful). Cook another 2-3 minutes, until the shrimp is cooked and the liquid is reduced by half. (If the shrimp finish faster than the reduction, remove them so they don't overcook.)

Remove the shrimp from the pan and arrange them over the greens. Pour the contents of the skillet over the salad plates. Serve.

Happy New Year!

A gracious welcome to 2008.

Every culture has a New Year's Day food tradition. Many of them are similar in spirit if not in ingredients. A common tradition, and one I heartily endorse, is the eating of lentils (preferably with something porky). The shape of lentils is similar to that of coins (well it is if you squint and suspend disbelief for a moment) and therefore eating them on New Year's Day should lead to a prosperous New Year. They taste good too.

This is the lentil dish we ate for lunch today. In addition to the lentils, it includes sauteed chorizo "coins", shallots and garlic. We ate it with a salad of radicchio and parsley and a whole wheat baguette spread with St. Andre cheese.

New Year Lentils

• 1 cup lentils (lentilles du Puy please)
  
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 cup sliced chorizo (I used hard chorizo, but a soft chorizo or another cured pork product can be used)
• 2 shallots, sliced
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tablespoons mustard
• 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
• 4 tablespoons olive oil

Rinse the lentils and put them into a 2-3 quart saucepan. Cover with water by 2 inches, toss in the bay leaf, a pinch of salt. Bring the water to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer.

Simmer the lentils under tender (taste one or two to see). Check on them occasionally to make sure they are covered with water, adding more if they get too dry. Depending on the age of your lentils, this could take anywhere from 25 to 50 minutes.

Drain the lentils in a colander or strainer and transfer to a bowl (they do not have to be bone-dry, it's ok to leave them a little damp). Discard the bay leaf.

In a dry skillet, saute the chorizo over medium high heat until it just starts to crisp. Add the shallots to the pan and saute in the fat given off by the chorizo (add some olive oil to the pan if your sausage doesn't render enough fat). After the shallots start to soften (about 5 minutes) , add in the garlic. Saute for another minute and then add the contents of the skillet to the bowl with the lentils (if there's a lot of fat in pan you may want to spoon some of it off first).

Make a quick dressing by whisking the mustard, vinegar and olive oil together. Pour it over the lentil mixture and toss gently. Taste for salt, acid (vinegar) and oil and add more of whatever is needed.

Serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 4 as part of a meal.

Fresh herbs such as thyme, parsley or savory would be great in this.

Butternut Squash Salad

This is another photo from my "oh crap we forgot to take a picture before dinner" series. I just love posting slightly appetizing pictures of leftovers on plastic plates in my office.

Anyhoo ... this is a really great salad. I am not a huge butternut squash fan, and when I do eat it I prefer a savory preparation (no maple syrup or brown sugar for me). This salad is one I read about on Orangette. She lifted it from the Casa Moro Cookbook (which I haven't read yet, but will be soon).

This doesn't really need a recipe, but I'll post it below anyway. The tahini/lemon combo is great on the squash. If you are a cilantro-hater (you know who you are) try parsley, mint and/or fennel fronds instead.

Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad

• 1 butternut squash (about 2 1/2 pounds), peeled, seeded and cut into bite-size chunks (your call on what "bite size" means, just make sure the pieces are about the same size)
• 1 finely minced clove of garlic
• drizzle of olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 1 can chickpeas, drained
• 1/4 cup finely chopped red or sweet onion (or scallions)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro (or one of the alternate herb options above)
  
• 3 tablespoons tahini (stir it well before measuring)
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon's worth of juice)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons water

Toss the squash with the garlic, a drizzle of olive oil (just so it's shiny, not drenched) and salt to taste. Roast in a 425 oven on a baking sheet until tender and gently browned.

While the squash is roasting, toss the chickpeas, onion and cilantro together in a bowl.

Make the dressing: whisk or shake together (in a jar) the tahini, lemon juice, 3 tablespoons olive oil and water. Taste for salt and pepper.

When the squash is done, throw it into the bowl with the chickpeas. Toss with the dressing (you may not need all of it) and serve.

This makes super leftovers, but definitely follow Molly's (and my) advice, and heat the leftovers up to just warm before eating. Toss with a little more dressing.

Reruns - Just as Good the Second TIme

We had Muhammara and Tabouli for dinner the other night. Links to both recipes are here and here.

I did two things differently and with success: The tabouli was made with millet instead of bulgur wheat. The muhammara recipe calls for walnuts and this time I used toasted pine nuts.

Both were delicious and enjoyed by all. Just a reminder that you can adjust recipes for what you have in house. If I hadn't had pine nuts, I might have used walnuts. If no millet, maybe couscous or quinoa or a little pasta like orzo.

Swampy Salad

This is a really delicious and easy dinner. Bread salad, also called panzanella ("little swamp") is a great way to use all the wonderful summer produce that we can get right now.

This isn't a recipe, per se, but a method. You should feel free to swap vegetables in and out, depending on what you've got available.

Since I like my bread to stay a little crisp, if I am making this ahead, I will put the vegetables in one container and the bread in another. Then right before serving, I will mix them together.

Bread Salad (for four)

Chop into smallish bite-sized pieces and toss in a bowl:

• 3 medium tomatoes
• 2-3 small zucchini or summer squash
• 1 -2 cucumbers
• handful of chives or scallions
• 3 ears cooked corn, cut off the cob
• large handful of basil
  

Squeeze the juice of 2-3 lemons over the vegetables. Pour some olive oil over the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Grill or toast 6 thick slices of country bread until crisp. If you'd like, drizzle the bread with a little olive oil prior to grilling. Cut the bread into crouton-sized pieces. Toss the bread in with the vegetables. Serve.

This is very nice with feta or goat cheese tossed into the salad.

Nepalese Potato Salad

I will be the first to admit that I am 100% certain that this resembles not at all anything eaten by the Nepalese. I will also be the first to admit that I don't care, cause this salad is yummy.

Dave and I were in Burlington, Vermont a few summers ago and stopped at their very nice farmer's market. We built a picnic out of various items we found there; one of them was a version of this salad (it was labeled Nepalese potato salad).

I did a little web research and I tinkered with what I thought should be in the salad and this is my current version. You should get puckeriness from the lime juice, heat from the chilies, saltiness from the salt (duh) and a smoky-nutty effect from the asafetida (optional) and toasted sesame seeds.

Nepalese Potato Salad (Aloo Achar)

• 1 pound potatoes (I have made this with russets, red skins and fingerlings - all good, but different, try red skinned first. I have also made a variation where I used roasted potatoes instead of boiled; VERY good)
  
• 4 tablespoons ground toasted sesame seeds (you can buy toasted sesame seeds at the supermarket near sushi-making supplies)
  
• Juice of 2 limes
  
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 or more hot green chiles, finely minced (I like this very spicy, so I usually use 2 or 3. If you have a group with mixed tolerance for heat, you can pass extra minced chilies on the side.)
  
• 4 tablespoons toasted sesame oil
• pinch ground asafetida (optional - you can find this at Indian markets)
  
• 10 whole fenugreek seeds (you can find them at Indian markets)
  
• 3 tablespoons cilantro, minced

Boil the potatoes in a big pot until fork tender.

While the potatoes are cooking, mix together the chiles, salt, lime juice, sesame seeds, and the sesame oil in a large bowl. This will be the dressing.

In a small skillet, heat a little oil. When hot, toss in the asafetida and fenugreek. They will sizzle and darken. As soon as they darken, toss them into the bowl with the dressing. Stir the cilantro into the dressing. Taste for salt, sour, heat, etc.

When the potatoes are done, drain and peel if desired. Cut into chunks while hot and toss with the dressing. This is best eaten after it's had a few hours to sit. It holds for several days, but may need a spritz of lime juice to freshen it up.

Gnocchi Salad: Take Two

This another take on the pan-seared gnocchi salad I made a month ago. This one contained asparagus, pinto beans, herbs from the garden (chives, thyme and oregano) and goat cheese. We tossed it in a sherry vinaigrette.

I used gnocchi that I made and froze on Sunday. To cook, I spread it on a baking sheet to "thaw" a little first, then pan fried it like before. This worked well, although next time I'll do this over medium heat at first, as opposed to high heat - they got very brown very fast and some were a wee bit mushy, so I think slightly slower cooking would have cooked them through more evenly.

Quinoa Salad

I read a great recipe on 101 Cookbooks for a Lemon-Scented Quinoa Salad. It looked yummy and I thought I'd try something similar. I thought I'd modify the salad to include the flavors in charmoula: lemon, olive oil, garlic, cilantro, and parsley.

I made this salad with chickpeas, roasted yellow peppers, roasted mushrooms, preserved lemon, and herbs (parsley and cilantro). To make weeknight prep easier, I roasted all my vegetables on Sunday.

Tonight, I made the quinoa in my rice cooker (have I mentioned how much I love that thing?) and then tossed everything together. This was our first experience with quinoa and this was a great way to be introduced to it.

Quinoa Salad with Moroccan Flavors

• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed well
• 1 8 oz. package mushrooms, sliced into quarters & roasted
• 2 yellow bell peppers, roasted, and chopped
• 1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
• 1 preserved lemon, chopped fine
  
• handful parsley, chopped
• handful cilantro, chopped
• clove of garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• extra virgin olive oil
• lemon juice (1 lemon) or rice vinegar
  

Make the quinoa according to the package directions (I cooked 1 cup quinoa with 1 3/4 cups water in my rice cooker).

While the quinoa is cooking, toss everything else together. When the quinoa is cooked, add it to the rest of the ingredients. Drizzle some olive oil over the salad and toss everything together. Add lemon juice or vinegar if you think the salad needs a little acid.

Serves 3-4.