Quinoa & purple

A wintry salad to stave off hunger and snow

Ingredients

1. quinoa - about 1/2 - 1 cup
2. 1 onion
3. can of mixed beans - or unmixed if you only like one kinda bean. Not baked beans though. Bleurgh.
4. 1/4 red cabbage, roughly chopped
5. jar of piquant peppers (try saying that fast)>
6. oil, lemon juice, chilli, seasoning

Method

• First, toast the quinoa - basically bung it in a dry saucepan over a highish heat stirring frequently so it doesn't burn until it's golden brown and starts to smell (nice). Then add twice the volume of water and simmer for 10 mins until it splits and goes soft.
• While the quinoa is cooking, chop the onion and bung it in the microwave on high for about 5 mins to soften and sweeten it.
• Roughly chop the cabbage and peppers; drain the beans.
• Add all the ingredients together with the quinoa while it's still warm, add oil, lemon juice, chilli and seasoning to taste. Everything will marinade as it cools down ....

This goes well in a winter lunchbox, and as it's not too gloopy it won't leak out the edges of your Underwhelming Tupperware box ....

not rocket science guacamole salad

i accidentally bought a bag of 20 avocados for a quid at the market at the end of the day ... so expect a rush of guacamole. here i added it to some leftover couscous, with a bit of apple for fresh crunch, which you can of course leave out if you fear fruit in salads (and yeah, yeah, i know the tomato's really a fruit). you could also add in something toasted - pine nuts or sunflower seeds - for extra protein if you were feeling like heating something.

Ingredients

• 1/2 small bowl couscous, already rehydrated with some veg stock and cooled
  
• 1/2 a ripe avocado, chopped into quite fat chunks
  
• 1/4 - 1/2 red chilli (depending on how much of a wuss you are), finely chopped
• 1/2 granny smith apple, chopped (you could use any variety, except golden delicious cos they are horrible)
  
• 1 tomato, chopped
• handful rocket, roughly chopped
• squish of lime juice
• splash balsamic
• salt, pepper
  

Method

1. place the couscous in a bowl and toss in the rest of the ingredients. This ain't rocket science.

confusingly tasty cottage sprout salad

i wasn't going to blog this, cos it didn't taste that interesting until i added the last ingredient - the caramelised onions, which really sorted out the flavours ... and even made plain cottage cheese vaguely edible.

Ingredients

1. a medium onion
2. large handful sprouts (i had cress, mustard, beansprouts)
3. 2 tbsp plain cottage cheese
4. 1 tsp capers
5. sprinkling dried chilli
   

Method

• chop the onion and spread on a plate. bung in the microwave for at least 5 mins on high to caramelise.
• put the sprouts in a bowl, add the chopped capers and cottage cheese. add the chilli, if using, and squish it all together.
• when the microwave goes bing, stir in the warm onions. the sweetness of the onions balances the tartness of the sprouts.... mmmm.

extreme green bean machine

speedy vaguely italian salad, simply dressed with lemon juice and olive oil, ideal for hoovering up leftover green salady items and excellent with sprouted funny beans :)


Ingredients

• a ripe avocado
• handful of spinach
• can cannellini beans
• large handful cress and/or alfalfa and/or any other random sprouts
• lemon juice
• olive oil
• salt, pepper
  
• few chopped jalepenos

Method

1. Chop the avocado and spinach and bung in a bowl.
2. Add the beans and cress and mix a bit.
3. Add lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and jalepenos (if using) and toss lightly.
4. Inhale.