Anna's Quinoa Wild Rice and Carrot Salad

I'm back after a long break..... It was 6 months ago that I last posted on this blog. Since then it's been a whirl wind few months with baby Max born, and a challenge to adapt to motherhood.... Anyway, here is a delicious quinoa wild rice and carrot salad, kindly provided by my cousin Anna. xx.

Ingredients:
1 carrot, shaved or julienned
Generous thumb of finely grated fresh ginger
Ditto of turmeric
Heaped teaspoon cumin
2 Cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 - 1 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup Ceres quinoa and rice blend
pistachio nuts (optional)

Method:
Soak quinoa/rice mix for 30 minutes. Then put on to the boil for 15 min.
Meanwhile gently fry onion. Once it's transparent, add turmeric, ginger, garlic, and cumin and fry for a few minutes. Add shaved carrot near the end for a minute or so. Sprinkle pistachio nuts as desired.

Serve with lamb cutlets, chicken nibbles, veggie burgers, or whatever else tickles your fancy.

Simplest Chickpea Curry

This is a recipe I make every week at least once. It's very basic, taking around 15 min, but is really hearty, healthy, and delicious...

Serves 2.

Ingredients
- 1 can chickpeas (pref in brine)
- 1 can chopped tomatoes (I like the ones with capsicums)
- 1 tablespoon curry powder
- 1/4 cup coconut cream (or whatever amount you prefer)
- optional: effort free veggies such as a handful of mushrooms, baby spinach or peas, none of which require chopping
- 1 tablespoon oil

Method
Briefly saute the curry powder in oil on medium heat for about 2 min. Add drained chickpeas and tomatoes and vegetables and simmer about 10 min. Add coconut cream, salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with brown rice.

Easy Warmed Spring Salmon Salad

An easy and healthy spring salad....

For the salad: 
- Asparagus, freshly steamed
- Baby spinach leaves
- Baby potatoes, boiled with skins on, and left to cool a bit
- Kalamata olives
- Freshly cooked salmon (or smoked salmon,
- Few small pieces red onion (opt)
- Small handful capers (opt)


For the dressing:
- Juice 1 lemon
- 1 teaspoon mustard
- 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- Salt
- Pepper

Split Yellow Pea Dahl Curry

3 cups split peas, washed, drained
2 L veggie stock
1 tsp turmeric
4 slices ginger, unpeeled
1/2 tsp garam masala
Coconut oil
1 tsp cumin seeds
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp chilli powder

Combine split peas, stock in a large pot. Bring to the boil and remove surface scum. Add turmeric and ginger. Cover, but leave lid slightly open, turn heat to low, and simmer for 1.5 hours.

Remove ginger slices and add garam masala.

Heat oil in a small non stick pan. Add cumin seeds and garlic, and stir fry til lightly browned, then add the chilli powder.

Add entire mix to the split peas.

Serve on brown rice.

Notes: could try adding veg like pumpkin, carrot, potato.

White fish mornay

Serves 2
40 min prep time, 20 min cooking time. 1hr E-2-E

Ingredients

50 butter

1/4 onion finely diced

2 Tbsp flour

1 1/2 cup milk

1 bay leaf

Salt and pepper

1 Tbsp lemon juice

Bunch parsley

1/2 cup grated cheese, plus 1/4 cup more

300g white fish

1/ 4 cup dried bread crumbs

Method

Preheat oven to 190deg. Grease a baking dish. In a small pot melt butter, and saute onion. Blend in flour. Whisk in milk and bay leaf. Bring to the boil then remove from heat. Remove bay, add cheese, parsley, lemon, salt and pepper. Stir in fish.

Pour into baking dish. Sprinkle extra cheese and crumbs. Bake until top has browned (approx 20min).

Super Simple Seedy Salad

Try this, for a super simple salad!

Combine:
Mesclin leaves or mixed sprouts
Parsley, finely chopped (opt)
Small amount spring onion, sliced (opt)
Shaved carrot (use a potato peeler)
Tamari roasted seeds

Sprinkle over:
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Freshly cracked pepper

Cherry Almond Granola Bars

These cherry almond granola bars are delicious.....photo to come

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2c cup rolled oats
1/4 cup LSA
½ cup sliced almonds/walnuts
½ cup shredded coconut
¼ cup whole almonds, roasted
1 Tbsp Chia seeds
¼ cup dried cherries, diced
1/4 cup almond butter
50g butter
1/4 cup Honey
1 banana, mashed
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt

DIRECTIONS

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees. On a large baking sheet, spread out your oats into an even, single layer. Toast for about 10 minutes, tossing slightly and rotating halfway through. Add your sliced nuts and coconut and toast for 3 additional minutes.

While you’re waiting, add your honey, banana, butter, and almond butter to a medium size pot and warm on low heat. Add your vanilla extract and whisk once more.

When the oat-coconut-nutty combo comes out of the oven, immediately transfer to the pot . Add your cinnamon and salt to the bowl and toss together. Fold in your whole almonds and cherry pieces. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl and fold together (a rubber spatula works best here) until everything is evenly coated.

Line a square pan (9″x 9″ or 8″x 8″ will work) with non-stick paper. Add the mixture to the pan and press down until evenly spread to all corners of the pan. It works best if you slightly dampen your fingers and work quickly to the edges.

Transfer the pan back to the oven and bake for 10–15 minutes or until slightly browned at the edges. You don’t want to wait until the bars are very browned or hardened as that will result in areally crunchy granola bar once they cool.