Kale and bean salad
Author avisha Categories Food & Nutrition, Recipes Posted on 0 Comments

Black Bean, Kale & Quinoa Salad

Having good quality ingredients stocked in your kitchen pantry means always having a meal on hand.

I recently found myself somewhat stranded up north without a car or companion.

My husband and I arrived at our place in Collingwood late one evening with just a few things on hand.  We had planned to shop the following day but circumstances sent my husband home before we could get in to town to shop.  The only food that I had brought from home was the kale that I hadn’t used the week before and cream for my morning coffee.

So… I did a situationally imposed fast until dinnertime when my hunger got the best of me.  As a side note, fasts are something that you have to be mentally prepared for.

I wasn’t prepared for this one.

Moving on.

The recipe below is the product of the kale that I brought with me and things that I had on my pantry shelves.

As I continue to preach to all of my clients, a recipe is a template.  Kale could be spinach, black beans could be kidney beans and for a vegetarian meal tuna could just be eliminated from this recipe

That being said, this is a great tasting combo that I thoroughly enjoy!

Black Bean, Kale & Quinoa Salad

Serves 4

Dressing

¼ cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Juice of ½ a lemon

1 tsp. honey

1 tsp. Italian Seasoning

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

Combine all ingredients together and mix well.

Salad

2 cups of kale, washed and chopped (hard spine removed)

1 can (398g) black beans, rinsed

1 can tuna (210g)**

1 cup cooked quinoa

½ cup chopped red onion

Directions

  1. Make dressing
  2. Put kale in bowl and add dressing. Massage the kale to break down its fiber. Let rest 5 minutes
  3. Add remaining ingredients and toss to coat with dressing
  4. Let the salad sit for 5-10 minutes and serve

**omit tuna for a vegetarian meal

Enjoy!

 

Grainy Greek Salad
Author avisha Categories Blog, Food & Nutrition, Recipes Posted on 0 Comments

Grainy Greek Salad

Recipes certainly have a place in the kitchen  both as a source of inspiration and as a guideline for preparation. But if there is one thing that I would truly love to get across to you is to have the confidence to go off the grid and experiment with new ingredients either in a whole new creation or by incorporating them in to family favourites.  There will be successes and there will be failures.  But it’s all a process.

Variety is not only the spice of life but it is also key to getting the wide array of important nutrients in to your diet that your body needs to function at its best and fight off disease.

So take an old favourite and enhance it by adding a superfood like hemp hearts.  Or replace some of the usual ingredients with something new and see how it flies.

This easy recipe is a twist on the conventional Greek Salad.  The addition of the black rice to the quinoa makes the salad a bit chewy adding a nice texture to it.  I added hemp hearts to pump it up.

This recipe does not have any greens in it.   But here is your chance to be creative.  If the mood hits you try adding some spinach or arugula.

Grainy Greek Salad

Ingredients

2/3 cup quinoa

1/3 cup Black rice

2 cups water, salted

1/2 english cucumber, chopped

1 small red onion, diced

1/2 avocado, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives

1 Tbsp. Hemp Hearts

1/2 cup Greek Feta Cheese

Dressing

2 TBSP Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 TBSP Apple Cider Vinegar

1/8 tsp. Honey

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tsp. dried oregano

Salt and Pepper to taste

Mix all ingredient together well.

Directions

  1. Bring water to boil and add salt
  2. Add quinoa and rice.  Cook until tender and let cool
  3. Place rest of ingredients in bowl.  Add cooled quinoa and rice
  4. Add prepared dressing to ingredients and toss
  5. Add salt and pepper to taste

Enjoy!

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Author avisha Categories Blog, Food & Nutrition, Recipes Posted on 0 Comments

Swiss Chard and Daikon Salad

The essence of a great salad is not just the layering of flavours but the layering of textures as well.

This salad started out with daikon as the recipe centre piece.  Daikon is a white root vegetable, similar in flavour and texture to a radish and is common in Asian cuisine.  To be honest it’s not something that I buy frequently but every once and a while I like to mix things up to add variety to our diet.

Daikon is a cruciferous vegetable and as such has several cancer fighting properties.  Daikon is high in antioxidants, especially vitamin C.  Antioxidants are essential for fighting free radicals. Research has also shown that daikon juice helps prevent the formation of carcinogens in our body and helps our liver to process toxins.

The green component in this salad is Swiss Chard.  Swiss Chard is loaded in phytonutrients and is one of a handful of foods containing betalain.

Add to these ingredients a cup of cannellini beans and you’ve got a yummy salad that is nutrient dense and fibre rich.

This easy to prepare salad is a combination of cooked and raw elements that is suitable as a stand alone for lunches or as a hearty side dish at dinner time.

Swiss Chard and Daikon Salad

Ingredients

2 bunches of Swiss Chard, chopped

1 onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

1/2 TBSP butter

1 cup of cooked Cannellini beans

1 daikon, chopped

1/2 red pepper, chopped

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Directions

  1. Melt butter in medium sized fry pan
  2. Add onion & garlic.  Salt and pepper lightly and saute for 5 minutes
  3. Add Swiss Chard and cook until tender.  Let this mixture cool for about 10 minutes and transfer to your serving bowl
  4. Add beans, daikon and red pepper to the Swiss Chard mixture and sprinkle lemon juice over top
  5. Mix together and salt & pepper to taste

Enjoy!

 

 

daikon