Accidentally Vegan: Quinoa Salad with Zucchini, Mint, and Pistachios

I believe I may have already blogged about the Meatless Mondays initiative, but as it's been such a long time since I've updated to begin with... Meatless Monday is a campaign with many celebrity contributors (Mario Batalli, Paul McCartney, to name a couple - I even have the McCartney family Meat-free Monday cookbook), as well as those in the health community, targeted to help reduce the amount of meat the average family consumes with the goal of bettering their personal health and the health of the environment. More often than not, I tend to forget Meatless Monday and treat it like a normal day. While putting together our grocery list this morning, I came across a lovely salad recipe from September's issue of Martha Stewart Living. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Martha, I find much of her magazine to be rather pretentious and WAY out of my league, but... her recipes are hands-down part of my favorites. She has a great style of writing her recipes (or at least her editors have an excellent way of editing them): they're easy, approachable, and very clear. Her recipes rank among Giada DeLaurentiis, Ina Garten, and the folks at America's Test Kitchen/Cooks' Illustrated for the most well-written recipes. And you know these recipes were tested to ensure they're correct, too, something I feel many cookbook authors and chefs don't do nearly enough. Anyway, I thought that I might keep the menu of meals this week rather light. Neither of us ate very consciously this weekend and I figure a nice salad would help turn that around.

I love quinoa and I love finding new ways to cook and prepare it. While there is some controversy about quinoa and the effect the explosion of first-world demand for quinoa has had on the indigenous people who primarily live off of it, I do love the fact that it's a fully balanced protein and can be a tasty stand-in for most starches, like rice, potatoes, and pasta. I also love zucchini and I don't think I cook nearly enough with it. It's such a versatile little gourd. You can bake it, stuff it, sauté it, roast it, grill it! With two of my favorite ingredients in the forefront, how could this salad go wrong? It didn't, to be quite honest. It was quick to make and incredibly flavorful. The sautéed zucchini provided a lovely sweetness next to the savory quinoa, then there was a punch of lemon from the zest and juice and the brightness of the mint. The pistachios add a lovely crunchy texture and toasted flavor note. A sharpness from the lightly sautéed garlic and the scallions made for a really great flavored salad. The great thing, too, is that it was filling, unlike other lettuce-based salads, which can leave you feeling more bloated than satisfied. Both Marshall and I loved it and I know I'll make it again.

A few things I would think to adjust for next time:

• Cut the amount of quinoa to 3/4 of a cup instead of a full cup.
• Increase the amount of zucchini by a full cup. I love having more green on my plate, plus I think the zucchini got a little lost among the quinoa.
• Skip trying to find/use roasted and salted pistachios. Get the shelled raw pistachios and toast them in a dry pan until lightly browned. You honestly won't miss the salt and I think you might end up with an even better flavor.
• Smash and mince the garlic, instead of slicing it. Honestly, I don't have the knife skills to thinly slice garlic and I'm not digging out the mandolin to slice a clove (or in my case 2 cloves) of garlic. If you choose to smash and mince, be super careful not to overcook the garlic in the pan. You merely want to warm it through and cut the rawness, you definitely don't want to brown it. 

A quick note about Martha's measurement "style": I'm not entirely sure where she gets her "medium" zucchinis that yield 2-1/2 cups thinly sliced. I also don't know where she gets her scallions where 3 of them sliced equals 1/2 Cup. Lastly, I think she gets her lemons from the magical lemon tree in her personal grove, because I've never been able to get 3 Tablespoons of juice from a single one! I ended up slicing 3 small-to-medium zucchinis, 6 rather skinny scallions, and the juice from 2 small lemons. My suggestion is to buy a little extra and if you end up with too much, I'm sure you'll find a use for your leftovers (might I suggest garnishing that gin and tonic with a lemon slice?).

I totally recommend this salad for those warm summer nights when you don't have much time to cook and the kitchen is too hot for much else. Plus - you could always grill your zucchini, instead of sautéing it!

Bon appetit!

Vegetarian Madness! Veggie Wheat-Berry Salad with Warm Pita and Grilled Halloumi

But first, a confession. Had you asked me what "halloumi" was 6 months ago, I would've ventured a guess that it was a type of fish. I would have, of course, been absolutely wrong. I had been to countless Greek and Mediterranean restaurants and seen something called "halloumi" on the menu and immediately regarded it as a type of fish, perhaps a white fish like halibut or mahi-mahi or a bronzino. Although, now I see that I probably just equated the way halloumi sounded with a combination of the words halibut and mahi-mahi (I believe covered the fact that I'm weird. Moving on...) Regardless, I would've never thought it was a type of cheese. What kind of name is halloumi for a type of cheese anyway? Well, it is and my sincerest apologies for the island of Cyprus (and its inhabitants) where halloumi originated. Halloumi is, indeed, a cheese and I learned this at a birthday party earlier this year. What's wondrous about halloumi is that it doesn't melt, but one of its famed preparations is grilling it. I'm not sure what kind of magic keeps this brined sheeps' milk cheese from melting once applied to heat, but it remains intact and this delicious salty-briny-crispy crust forms on the outside. It's delicious and irresistible. My friend's boyfriend grilled some up for my friend's birthday party and it just tasted so damn good. Plus, it's super quick and easy. Just a non-stick pan is needed over medium heat. Plop down a few slices, grill a couple minutes on either side, then eat! Well, okay, wait for it to cool down a bit, but then eat!

Weirdly enough, I forgot about the halloumi until this weekend while leafing through this month's issue of Women's Health. Every once in a while they'll have a section on food and cooking chock-full of delicious recipes. This month's held a particular gem: Veggie Wheat Berry Salad. My husband, when presented with this week's menu, immediately said "I knew you'd pick to make that!" pointing to the recipe in the magazine. I asked him why he would think that I would be drawn to this recipe, despite the fact that it sounded delicious and perfect for a summer evening. "Because of the photo. It's in a small little glass, all pretty and colorful." Indeed the photo shows a small appetizer-sized glass full of colorful veggies and little fluffy-looking wheat berries. I can't deny that the photo drew me into the recipe in the first place (ironic considering one of this month's articles is on food porn...), but it was the potential for a delicious one-salad meal with fresh summer veggies and chewy wheat berries. I fell in love with wheat berries when I was living in London. One of the yogurt varieties/brands had winter wheat berries stirred throughout. The yogurt itself was sublime (so much better than the yogurt in the states), but the addition of the wheat berries...it made it more filling and you'd find these little chewy bits of deliciousness amid the creamy clouds of yogurt and sweet chunks of strawberries. I ate more yogurt while I was in London that I'd eaten my entire life. Anyway, for the longest time I didn't know what these little bits were in my yogurt. But now I know and I'm totally going to cook up a batch of plain wheat berries and sprinkle them in my yogurt from now on.

Anyway, getting back to the salad, and the meal as a whole, it was perfect: savory and fresh. I couldn't find any green bell peppers at the store, and wanting a bit more color than red, I found a few purple bell peppers and picked those up (of course, forgetting that the red onion is also purple, but they still stood out). The dressing is a great combination of tangy and savory, akin to the "broth" in a gazpacho (thanks, in part, to the red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce). Overall it had a very gazpacho-like quality, but much more filling due to the chewy and delicious wheat berries. Originally, I wasn't sure if this would be filling enough for a dinner, which is why I toasted up a pita bread and grilled up the halloumi. Everything worked so well together. After taking a bit of pita and cheese with a bit of olive oil, a bit of the salad would cleanse the palate. This would make an excellent picnic meal (either pre-grill the cheese or use a pan or be extra-special careful on the open BBQ). The salad itself, of course, is perfect for summer potlucks, too!

Hello Dal-ly, Take Two: Curried Red Onion Jam with Simple Dal

I know it wasn't too long ago that I posted a delicious dal recipe. This particular post isn't necessarily going to focus on the dal, but rather on the condiment which elevates this simple dal into something incredible. You'll recall from my last post that I'm rather enamored with a new cookbook. It shouldn't surprise then that this recipe comes from the same book. While the onion is called "red", it certainly doesn't look RED like other truly red fruits and vegetables. Instead, the author quite rightly puts the red onion in the purple chapter. Yes, a look at a color wheel would show that the connection between red and purple is only a small amount of blue away, but it's still purple. Okay, how did we get on the topic of color? When I set about to make this condiment, I had no idea how much flavor a red onion could have. I have a slight issue with onions. Raw onions tend to not have the best affect on me; they leave me tasting onions for days afterward and my stomach is certainly far from happy. Cooked onions are better for me, but I tend to keep my distance from too much onion regardless. But this jam? Oh my... it's sweet, tangy, spicy, and, well, jammy. It's super simple to make and even though I made mine the night before making the dal, they can both be made at the same time and in about an hour. So, while it's certainly not a 30-minute meal, it can be done after coming  home from work. I have a feeling this jam would also make a great gift. Snag a couple of small jars and a few pieces of decorative fabric/cloth and you've got a gift for just about anyone. Cheryl, the author of Ripe, mentions you can use the leftover jam for sandwiches and I'm eager to give it a try. I figure some roasted chicken, mayo, and some spinach with plenty of this jam would make a kind of curried chicken salad sandwich. You could also use it in a pita with hummus and crunchy veggies for a flavor-packed vegetarian option. Either way, this jam can be an excellent condiment for just about anything in need of kick.

I did want to touch upon the simple dal. It really is very simple. I could barely believe just how simple it was to cook and yet so incredibly flavorful, creamy, and rich it came out to be. I'd never cooked with red lentils before, so this was a first. I think the last dal I made, using lentils of course, used the regular brown/green lentils (I think...it was a while ago). The red lentils don't retain their shape like French black lentils do, but instead break down into this super rich creaminess. The aromatics in this recipe also stand out. I mean, this dal only calls for lentils, water, star anise, ginger, and a chili pepper (I used jalapeno since I couldn't find a red chili at the store). Since it's only 1 chili, there isn't a whole lot of spice, but ginger makes up for the lack of heat. The star anise provides this sweetness and underlying tone, which I'd never noticed in other dal I've had. Honestly, this is probably the simplest recipe I'll ever post here.

I got a request from a friend to post more vegetarian-friendly recipes. I have another vegetarian dish, which I'll post next. I honestly love cooking vegetarian. Not only does it tend to be simpler to make, but it's also a lot lighter on the wallet. The times when I've spent the most at the grocery store have usually been when I had a lot of meat on the week's menu. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think I could ever turn completely vegetarian. I love fish, chicken, pork, and beef way too much to give it all up. I pride myself on being an omnivore and am lucky to have a husband who doesn't have to have meat on his dinner plate every night.