Recipe: Summer Quinoa Salad

I'm still here! I am working on getting in the habit of posting more regularly again, so I promise I'll stop failing at that soon.  Until then, this is a great salad that came together in about 20 minutes.  I was having a bottle of wine with my friends Erica and Elizabeth and we decided we wanted some dinner (but didn't want to go out).  They gave me free reign of their pantry and kitchen and after a bit of poking around I threw this together with their help.  What is great about this salad is that it is gluten-free, super healthy, and endlessly interchangeable.  During the fall you could swap in roasted squash and eggplant, in the spring you could add in chopped baby spinach, apple, pecans and raisins.  I wish I had had some fresh parsley or lemon to throw in to give it a tabouli feel but it was perfect the way was. It works great as a main dish, or would be terrific beside a pice of grilled chicken or fish.

Zesty Chicken Rollups

The credit for this recipe goes to my mother.  When I was back at home a few weekends ago she whipped this up and it is a great way to use the grill to keep the house cool in the summer and do something that is a bit out of the norm for dinner.  The secret to keeping the chicken juicy and giving it great flavor is a long marinade in zesty Italian dressing (12ish hours) and the tucked in feta gives is a wonderful little surprise inside.  You could also use a dollop of Boursin or any other type  of cheese that you like, but the feta doesn't melt as easily meaning less could ooze out onto the grill.  The chicken itself is the thin cut variety, if you can't find that you can always pound out your own.

Here's what you need:
Zesty Italian dressing
Thin cut chicken breasts for the number of people you are serving
3 thin asparagus spears per person
Feta cheese
Salt
Pepper
Cooking spray

Marinate the chicken in Zesty Italian for up to 12 hours for the best flavor.  Remove the chicken from the marinade and place on your cutting board, seasoning with salt and pepper.  Remove the woody ends from the asparagus and spray lightly with cooking spray and season with the salt and pepper.  Place them in chicken breast with a slice (if its a block) or crumbles of feta.  Roll up the chicken around the filling and use toothpicks to keep it closed.

Preheat your grill to 400 degrees and cook for 15 minutes, turning every 5 or until the chicken is cooked through.  We served it with grilled corn and some toasted sourdough.

Sweet Substitutions: Chocolate Chip Chickpea Bites

Let's take a break from our regularly scheduled programing, shall we? My sister sent me another post for the Sweet Substitutions section (you can read the first one, here)  This time its Chocolate Chip Chickpea Bites from one of her friends blogs, and from the pictures it looks like something I'm going to have to make myself very soon.  Without further adieu, I'll let her take it away:

Recipe: Lentil Stuffed Mushrooms

I've gotten back on a lentil kick recently, though some popular opinions assert that I never got off of it... but no matter.  I've talked about them a few times (here, here, and here) but this recipe might just take the proverbial cake.  The earthiness of the lentils pairs very nicely with the mushrooms, the ingredients stewed with the lentils add some extra nutrition and color, and the lentils themselves could be prepared several days ahead.  I made a pretty big batch of the lentils here, but if you were only looking to make a few mushrooms the recipe could easily be halved.  I got most of my ingredients at our local ALDI.  If you have one check it out, I've been very surprised by both the prices and the quality of the stuff they have.

You might also notice after reading the recipe that I cook the lentils for a long time, but I have a reason....I sort of like when they form a mush, or I suppose paste sounds better.  After it cools and goes in the fridge it can be spread on bread, dipped with crackers, and used in all sorts of ways (one of which is being stuffed into mushrooms, so it works out pretty well).  With the ease of prep after the lentils are cooked this would be a great item to take to parties, or reduce the recipe and have with a salad for an easy summer or fall dinner.

21+: Blueberry Gin-ger-ade

Happy 4th to all of you in America, and happy Wednesday to the rest of you.  I made this drink last night for some festivities and thought that I would share it with you all.  It got great reviews from my friends and really hit the spot with the heat. Its cool, sweet, and is easy to throw together.  You can even make some of it ahead of time and throw in the ginger ale right before you leave.  This makes about 2 liters of drink but could be halved or doubled pretty easily.

Recipe: Roasted Broccoli with Lemon

I'm back! (It's alright if you didn't realize that I was gone, I'm happy to have you reading this too).  I apologize about the long break but between school wrapping up for the year and starting a job I haven't been able to post as regularly.  I'm working to change that.  Anyway, today I have an incredibly easy recipe that is really delicious.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Vegetable+425degree oven+a little bit of time=magic.  Today we are casting this magic on broccoli.  Trust me, even my sister was raving about how much she liked it...and if I can win her over you know something is working right.

Recipe: Roasted Beet and Spinach Salad

Let's go ahead and add beets to the list of things that I never in a million years thought that I would like even though I had never tried them (because I had never tried them).  WRONG.  Beets are amazing.  I love them for a few reasons: their earthy sweetness, their color (we really don't eat enough purple), and the way they can be transformed to fit many different types of dishes.  For this salad I roasted and sliced them and added them to a simple salad with a simple dressing.  It all comes together beautifully, and the beets could even be roasted a day before if you want them cold.