Superfood Salad (and bonus skin treatment!)

Hi there folks! Long time no see. I've been busy with the holidays and FINISHING COLLEGE (yay!) and am now applying for jobs, so forgive my lack of posts lately. But now that I'm back, I'm excited to bring some new changes to the blog and start writing about more than just food!

I've actually been on a new, pretty strict eating plan as of late, so that's another reason there haven't been any new recipes lately.

But here's one I haven't shared yet, and it's one of my absolute favorites. This salad is a great meal to make on the weekend and eat for lunch all week. As a bonus, you can actually give yourself a little natural skin treatment after you make it! Cooking and a relaxing spa treatment, sounds like a perfect weekend, no?

Superfood salad with quinoa, kale, avocado, and more goodness

Serves 4-ish

Ingredients

For the salad:

• 1 cup dry quinoa (rinsed and drained)
• 1⁄2 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 avocado, pitted and diced
• 1 bunch kale, de-stemmed and chopped
• 1⁄2 cucumber, sliced
• 1⁄4 red onion, sliced

For the dressing:

• 1⁄4 cup lemon juice
• 1⁄4 cup olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• Salt and pepper to taste

Note: The diet I'm on is very restrictive on oil and salt. Today I would blend the avocado right into the dressing instead of the olive oil, and use a salt-free lemon pepper seasoning instead of the salt and pepper. In case you want to up the health quotient on this even more!

Method

1. Cook the rinsed quinoa in 1.5 cups water, over low heat in a pot or rice cooker for about 15 minutes, or until most of the liquid is absorbed. Set aside to cool, chill in fridge. (Quinoa can be prepared up to a day in advance)
2. Chop tomatoes, avocado, onions, cucumbers, and rinse black beans and combine in a medium bowl. De-stem and chop kale and place in a large bowl.
3. Mix lemon juice, oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour dressing over the kale and “massage” for a few minutes. This helps improve the texture and flavor of kale.
4. Mix all ingredients into the dressing and kale mixture.

Makes about 4 servings as a main dish, 6 as a side. Will last 5-7 days in the refrigerator.

Optional: Skin Treatment

Some of the ingredients used in this salad can be used as skin treatments after you finish making the salad! 

• Scrape the skin of the avocado and rub the extra into any dry skin as an intense moisturizer. 
• Leave on for a few minutes and set some cucumber slices on your eyes.
• After a few minutes, wash off the avocado with a warm wash cloth.
• You can use any leftover lemons/lemon juice as a toner.

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Thanksgiving Reflections, 2014 Edition

Thanksgiving 2014 was another great one, and I'm still feeling the glow days later. My parents came up for the second year in a row, and we shared a plant-based Thanksgiving feast that I have been planning for weeks.

I shared my menu a few weeks ago, and there were only a few changes since then. In the end it was all vegan, gluten-free (except the rolls), and refined-sugar free (stevia and maple syrup in the pie). Here's how it all turned out:

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Autumn Kale Salad

Fall is my favorite produce season - I love picking up persimmons and pomegranates at the farmer's market. This year my Thanksgiving salad mixes those flavors with other autumn staples like pumpkin seeds and cranberries. The result is a tender, crunchy, sweet and savory salad that will give you plenty to be grateful for.

Kale salad with quinoa, persimmons, pumpkin seeds, cranberries, and a pomegranate vinaigrette

Serves 4-ish

Ingredients

For the salad:
(I didn't measure this part. These are approximate amounts and don't need to be exact, so adjust to your preference and what you have on hand)

• 1 large bunch kale, stems removed and torn into pieces (or a prepared bag - but lose those pesky stems)
• 1/2 small shallot, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup pepitas, lightly toasted
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1 ripe fuyu persimmon, peeled and sliced into half-moons
• 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
• Pomegranate seeds (optional, but probably perfect)

For the dressing:
(There will be extra, so you can be generous with the dressing, make more salad, or half the ingredients for the dressing if you want to keep it light)

• 1/4 cup 100% pomegranate juice (juice it yourself or buy it - but make sure it is 100% pomegranate juice with no added juices or sugars)
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Put kale into large bowl
2. Whisk together salad dressing ingredients and pour a small amount into the kale (use your own judgement/preference here, but enough to moisten all of the leaves).
3. "Massage" the dressing into the kale until it is tender and just wilted. You may want to wear gloves or plastic bags over your hands for this.
4. Add the remaining salad ingredients and toss, adding more dressing if desired (or serve it on the side).

And there you have it. Happy Thanksgiving!

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My Thanksgiving Menu (first draft, anyway!)

Hello! It's been a while. I've missed blogging, but some other things have been taking up my time.

For example, we rescued a bunny in August and she's been the center of my world ever since. She's a sweet, silly, and shy little lop with helicopter ears (one up and one down - the cutest thing ever). We named her Penny Lane, and spoil her rotten. There will probably be some posts about her in the near future, actually. But for now, just look at that cute face!

I've also been really busy chipping away at my last semester of college EVER. Only another 5 weeks or so until I'm a college grad! It's an exciting, slightly terrifying, and definitely busy time.

In between all that and more, I've still been cooking up a storm, and I'll have quite a few new recipes to share soon.

This month, however, my focus is delightfully directed toward Thanksgiving, as once again I am hosting this year! (There will probably be some flashback posts soon about the menu and decor from last year - they were on a different blog.)

I have been pinning and organizing the potential recipes for weeks, and today I may just have finalized the menu. I recently eliminated wheat and refined sugars from my diet, so had to factor that into the planning process, and I managed to create a menu that works! So without further adieu, here is a 100% vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free Thanksgiving menu that I can't wait to bring to life:

Main Course: Thanksgiving Meatless Loaf from FatFree Vegan Kitchen. After 3 blissful years of ordering the Native Foods Wellington (a puff pastry filled with meaty seitan, yams, kale, and stuffing and topped with what is arguably the best mushroom gravy in existence), we decided to go our own way this year (plus, the wellington has tons of wheat). We chose a meatless loaf that doesn't pretend to be meat. It's full of vegan staples - beans, tofu, veggies - delicious thanksgiving herbs and spices, and looks like it will be completely perfect when slathered in mushroom gravy. Speaking of which...

Gravy: Happy Herbivore's Everyday Mushroom Gravy - Quick fangirl moment - Lindsay Shay Nixon is by far my favorite plant-based cookbook author (and idol). She's a pro at creating recipes that are as simple as they are delicious, and her compassionate "progress not perfection" approach to the vegan lifestyle is a refreshing change of pace. Anyway! I'm not sure if this simple gravy recipe is anywhere online, but it can be found in two of Lindsay's books, Everyday Happy Herbivore and Happy Herbivore: Holidays and Gatherings (which is new this year and also the source of another recipe I plan to try - fangirling over!)

Stuffing: Southern Cornbread Stuffing from Food to Glow - When I asked my boyfriend if he had any special requests for Thanksgiving (which also falls on his birthday this year), he suggested cornbread. So when I realized I also had to start looking for a wheat-free stuffing recipe, this was a no-brainer. This recipe was the first to pop up in my search, and it had me at hello - I think it's going to be the home run recipe of the year.

Salad: This is going to be my original recipe, so look for that post in the next few weeks once I get it right. But it will be a kale salad with plenty of autumn accents.

Other side dishes: Garlic/rosemary mashed potatoes, simple roasted green beans, and Happy Herbivore's sweet potato casserole from her new holiday book.

Dessert: GF Maple-Nut Pumpkin Pie. I'm trying a hybrid of this simple pie filling made with cashews and this gluten-free crust made with pecans, and topping it all off with the maple coconut whipped cream that we loved last year. Making some small changes to make the recipes work together, and to work with my current diet, but I'm excited to see how this turns out.

And there you have it! I couldn't be more thrilled to make and eat all of this in a few weeks. What new recipes are you trying this year?

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5 More Kitchen Tools I Love

I did a post a few weeks ago on 5 of my favorite kitchen gadgets, but I knew I couldn't stop there. Here are 5 more tools I use (and love) in my kitchen:

1. These gorgeous knives: I've had this Farberware Resin 3-Piece Set for over a year now, and still adore it. At the time I just needed a decent, affordable set of knives to hold me over until I could splurge on something more substantial, but they are holding up better than expected. It's fun to have knives as colorful as the vegetables they are chopping, and the resin coating is standing the test of time. Bonus: they come with individual sheaths to spare you from accidental cuts when storing them in a drawer.
   
   
2. This enormous measuring cup: I was just looking for a regular 2-cup measuring cup when I stumbled upon this massive 8-cup one, and then I realized how often I'm measuring in quantities larger than 2 cups. So I bought both this one and a smaller one, and I no longer need to refill my little cups when I'm working with big portions. 
   
3. The most versatile funnel: This 4-piece set can be adapted to any of your needs, and it's crazy awesome. I love to use all three funnel pieces when I'm making almond milk, so I can squeeze the nut milk from the bag right into a tiny bottle. The uses are endless. And bonus: it comes with a strainer attachment! Betcha didn't know funnels could be this good.
   
4. This fancy corkscrew: My first corkscrew was cheap and seemed to destroy my wine corks or not fit over the bottle half the time. I decided it was time to find something more sophisticated, and  this one is the best deal around. It has a built-in blade to perfectly remove the foil at the top of the bottle, and then all you do is position the corkscrew over the top of the bottle and rotate the handle. In one motion it grabs the cork and removes it, flawlessly every time. It's a bit hit at parties.

5. This bamboo kitchen tool set: I love to cook with wooden spoons and spatulas. They are sturdy like metal, but soft like plastic, yet they won't melt or scratch the pan. I got this set about a year ago, and it's fantastic. Very easy to use and clean. 

All images from Amazon.com

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