Kale, Quinoa & Falafel Salad

Have you seen mini kale in your supermarket or farmers market lately?
I have found these little kales in Coles, and not only are they super cute, but they are really delicious too. 
They don't have the same grassy taste that regular kale does. They have a subtle sweetness to them.
We have been enjoying them the last few months.

They are called "kalettes" and Coles has described them as a combination of kale and brussels sprouts with a nutty flavour.

I think that is a very good description.

Here's a quick and easy way to add them to a eye-pleasing salad:

KALE, QUINOA & FALAFEL SALAD

You'll need:
1 cup quinoa
1 punnet of kalettes
Approx 20 pre-cooked falafels
1 red capsicum


Dressing:

1 can chickpeas, drained
1 Tablespoon sweet chili sauce
2 Tablespoons soft tofu
1 teaspoon lemon juice

Place the quinoa in a microwave safe dish with 2 cups of water. Place a lid on and cook in the microwave for 12 minutes or until quinoa is clear and cooked through.
Allow to cool slightly.
Remove the woody ends from the kalettes and steam for 3-4 minutes.
Slice the capsicum.
Combine all the above in a salad bowl along with the falafels.
You can make your own falafels, or use packet ones. (Click on this link to see my preferred packet brand.)
To make the dressing, simply combine all the ingredients in a blender with 2-3 Tablespoons of water and blend til smooth. You can add more water if you prefer a thinner sauce.
Pour over the salad.

Can be served warm or cold.

*You can use regular kale if you can't find kalettes. Just steam and chop into rough pieces.

Question of the day:
Have you seen kalettes in the shop?

Quinoa Stuffed Eggplants

Here's another post that has sat in my drafts for sometime.
I had taken several photos and for some reason my SD card in my camera decided it would corrupt the pictures. Not happy!
I have since upgraded my SD card and now I bring you these super yummy 

Quinoa Stuffed Eggplants

(Makes 6)

You'll need:

3 large eggplants

2 cubes frozen spinach

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

1/2 green capsicum

1 tin lentils

1 Tablespoon mixed Italian herbs

2 cups cooked quinoa

2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast

1/2 cup tomato passata cooking sauce

Bake the eggplants in a preheated 200C oven for 30 minutes until softened. Make sure you have pierced the flesh in several places with a fork so they don't explode. 

Cut the eggplants in half lengthways, and scoop out the softened flesh, leaving a small border (approx 1cm) around the edge of the eggplant.

Lay them out on a baking tray.

Soak the frozen spinach in some boiling water for a few minutes until defrosted. Drain. (Omit if using fresh spinach.)
Chop the onion, garlic, and capsicum.
Stir all the vegetables in a large bowl and combine with the drained lentils, nutritional yeast, herbs, quinoa and passata.  Chop the flesh of the eggplant that was removed and stir this into the mixture too (optional - it also makes a great dip if you don't want to add it to this mixture!).
Scoop the mixture into the cooked eggplants. Fill them quite well as this will give the eggplant case back its shape. Press the mixture down quite firmly. 
Drizzle a line of passata over the quinoa mixture (this is purely for presentation purposes, cause I think it looks better than just the plain mixture, salsa also works fantastic or any other sauce you'd rather).

Reduce the oven temperature to 180C and bake the eggplants, now stuffed, for a further 20 minutes until warmed through completely.

A recommendation and a story:

My husband took one bite into these & spat it out, declaring how awful they were!!!

I was chuckling to myself because I realised he had eaten the top of the eggplant! I thought everyone knew you weren't supposed to eat the top of eggplants - clearly not!

So I highly recommend removing the eggplant tops prior to putting these on plates.

After his initial opinion of this meal, he decided they were actually quite delicious!

 
Submitted for Healthy Vegan Fridays.

Add your recipe at:
Rock My Vegan Socks 
Vegan Dollhouse 





Question of the day:
Have you ever accidently eaten the top of an eggplant?

Kids Lunchbox Club - Quick Mexican Quinoa Salad

My daughter has decided that she quite loves quinoa! This is thanks to her testing out a Dreena Burton recipe. So this means now she requests it for her lunchbox salad. We don't often eat quinoa, but I had a batch made up this week and with a few leftover bits and pieces from a Mexican-inspired meal we had prepared earlier in the week this delicious salad was created.
Nevermind the kids! I reckon this lunchbox meal would please any adult too!

QUICK MEXICAN QUINOA SALAD

To serve one you'll need:
1 cup cooked quinoa
2 Tablespoons of salsa
1/4 cup black beans
1/4 cup corn kernels
1/4 small capsicum - chopped
1/2 small avocado - diced

Stir a tablespoon of salsa into the quinoa and mix well. 
Add the other ingredients and stir through. Top with the remaining tablespoon of salsa.


 

Submitted to Healthy Vegan Fridays
You can add your recipe on these blogs:
Vegan Dollhouse 
Rock My Vegan Socks

Baked Quinoa Pizza Pie

This is neither a pizza nor a pie really..... but rather inspired by both pizza and pie!
Either way - it's totally delicious :-)

BAKED QUINOA PIZZA PIE

Pie:
3 cups cooked quinoa
1/2 green capsicum
1/4 cup corn kernels (or other pizza veggies of choice like mushrooms)
1 spring onion
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup tomato paste 1 teaspoon garlic flakes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon chili

Chop the veggies and basil leaves.
Place all the ingredients in a bowl and stir until well combined.
Press into a lightly sprayed casserole dish. Press down well.

Next make the topping.

Cheese sauce:
2 generous Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1 Tablespoon cornflour
1 cup plant milk of choice

Whisk together all the ingredients in a microwave safe jug.
Microwave for 1 minute or until thicken.
Spread over quinoa mixture.

Bake 30 minutes in a preheated 180C oven.

Slice and serve.
This will slice better if it has had time to cool first. 

 Submitted for Healthy Vegan Fridays.

Add your healthy vegan recipe on these blogs:

Herbivore Triathlete 
Hello Veggy 
Rock My Vegan Socks



Question of the day:
What dishes have inspired you to be creative with their flavours but in an alternate way?

WIAW - On a Tuesday

Happy Wednesday to all my readers :-)

I hope you've had a great today.

Add your link to the Peas & Crayons blog.

Today I have chosen to share with you What-I-Ate-Tuesday! My Wednesday meals are always so similar so that is why I'm given you some insight into other days of my week. This week's Tuesday was particularly exciting because it was 'burger day'. Each holidays my daughter and I have a day where we have a fry's burger :-) They sure are tasty and great for a treat but we don't eat them regularly since they aren't exactly 'health food'.

So here is what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast --> So incredibly tasty. I really enjoy eating quinoa for breakfast.

To make quinoa porridge, simply boil quinoa in milk and a touch of vanilla. Blend with a stick blender & add desired fruit.

Lunch --> a holiday treat! Lots of added veggies too :-) I love a good veggie burger.

Dinner --> I really enjoy Asian food but my husband does not, so while he was away for dinner this evening we made the most of it and enjoyed a tasty stir-fry. 

A frozen Asian veggie mix with rice noodles. Sauce was just soy sauce, sweet chili sauce & a tablespoon peanut butter. Absolutely delicious :-)

Question of the day:

What is something that you enjoy eating that your partner doesn't? 

When do you get to eat that food?

Day 5 Unprocessed

Today started with quinoa & raisins for breakfast.
I really love having quinoa for breakfast. I just think it goes so well with milk :-)

Quinoa is so easy to cook. Its just like cooking rice or pasta. `1 cup quinoa to 3 cups of water in a pot, bring to boil, simmer 10-15 minutes. You'll be able to tell when it's 'done' because the seeds pop open and become translucent with a little white ring around them. It keeps well in the fridge and freezes well too which means you can make a big batch & then use it when needed.


Lunch was soup! Best thing to have on cold, rainy days.... Well I just love soup on any day really!

This soup is really simple yet really tasty.
1/2 cup red lentils, 2 carrots, one small onion, 1 cup stock, 2 cups water. Bring to boil, simmer. Use a stick blender til desired consistency of soup is reached.

Baked dinner of tofu, herbed potatoes, green beans and a corn cob.

YAY FOR DESSERT TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
Check out the recipe for my Pop-eye Ice-cream.

Day 2 Unprocessed

My day started out with this:

This is a 'yogurt' made by mixing frozen blueberries and dates with just enough plant-milk to combine it but not to make it too runny. Tastes delicious.

 Who am I kidding - I always mix everything on my plate together!

For lunch I had leftover of last nights green & bean mix with some quinoa:

Of course, I mixed all that together too ;-)











I had a few grapes with lunch too. Grapes are just so pretty aren't they?!?

For dinner I tried a Polenta Pizza from the fat free vegan kitchen.
It worked out really well! I loved the taste of it, even though it didn't really feel like I was eating pizza!

The base - cooked

Not bad for a 'different' type of pizza!

And yes, of course, I didn't forget dessert! ;-)

I used the okara from yesterday & made "banana rock cakes" - well something similar to that anyway! I just mixed the okara with 2 mashed bananas, a bit of maple syrup, a handful of currants & enough spelt flour to make a dough. Baked for 25 minutes = divine! When I'm convinced I've got the recipe right I'll do a blog!

DIY Thursday

Who's joining in the 21 day kickstart?

Thursday evenings suggested meal is: Kickstart DIY: Green, grain and a bean

 

                                         Green: Silverbeet

                                         Grain: Quinoa

                                         Bean: Chickpeas

Here's the DIY adventure that I had:

Today at Coles I picked up this awesome McCormick recipe-creations spice pack for only $1.14! Of course that meant I had to incorporate that into my meal too.

This mixture of herbs & spices was just AMAZING! They really complimented each other & I will definitely be using these recipe-creations packs again.
This blend contains ground coriander seeds, coriander leaves, chili, garlic, paprika, and lemon pepper.
I used only a third of the pack and have stored the rest in a glass jar use at a later date.

To make my DIY meal I chopped a whole bunch of silverbeet, added water and placed in the microwave for 5 minutes. 
I boiled half a cup of quinoa in 1 cup of water for approx 15 minutes until the quinoa was cooked through.

I chopped a yellow capsicum & an onion. Placed them in a pan to water saute with the spices provided in the pack (except the coriander leaves).  I sauteed for 5 minutes til the onion was soft then added a drained tin of chickpeas and a teaspoon of lemon juice.

I assembled my collection of "green, grain & bean" on my plate and topped with the coriander leaves provided by the marvellous spice pack!

Result:
AmAzInGlY delicious meal that was quick & easy that will now become a regular!

"Weird" Quinoa Meal

Do you eat similar to the way you were brought up or very different?

I'm sure my parents have never even heard of "Quinoa" or "Kale" or "Nutritional Yeast".
If I told them I had this meal for dinner recently they would definitely say it was "weird".

And they definitely wouldn't believe me if I told them that there was such thing as purple carrots!

 

Sometimes its fun to get experimental in the kitchen and try new flavours.

My recent taste experiment has been purple carrots.

So of course I had to include them in my "weird" meal!!!

I hope you enjoy this.

I found the combination of these un-common tastes rather exotically delicious!!!!

I used pre-cooked quinoa. I find having pre-cooked grains on hand in the fridge very handy. I will often make a large batch & use it several times through-out the week. 

1 cup pre-cooked quinoa (warmed up)
3 button mushrooms
1 purple carrot
2 large kale leaves
1 small brown onion

Chop the mushrooms, carrot and onion into bite size pieces. Water saute these vegetables in a frying pan until they are soft & lightly browned.
Stem the kale and roughly chop the leaves. Microwave with water in a bowl on high for 3 minutes, then drain & add to the other vegetables. Stir to combine.

To make the sauce:
1 Tablespoon almond butter
1/2 cup soymilk
2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 teaspoon dried sage

Stir all these ingredients together until well combined. Warm in the microwave for 30 seconds, or over a stove (if you want to make extra washing up!).

Serve the quinoa in a bowl & top with the vegetables. Spoon the sauce over the top.

Serves one.

Enjoy.