Friday, August 29, 2014

Salad and Quinoa and Beans, oh my!



The only thing I like better than referring to summer in the past tense is referring to autumn in the present tense.  Not built for hot weather, me.

What I do love about summer, though, is the food.  Fresh cucumbers, salads with sun-ripened tomatoes, grilled eggplant, stuffed zucchini, buckets of garden veggies to pass out to neighbors and co-workers...  it really doesn't get any better, in my book.

As someone who focuses a lot on seasonal eating, much of my diet the last several months has been salads and similar fresh-veg cold dishes.  Therefore rather than presume to reinvent the wheel, I haven't been doing much posting.  If I'm honest with you, I'll most likely never be one of those people who makes new dishes every week just to have something to post.  Instead, you get my faves whenever I make them.  Isn't that nice?

Anyway, now that summer's unofficially over, I thought I'd share with you my favorite hot-weather foods.  You'll notice that all of them follow the same basic theme: quinoa or chickpeas, fruit or veg, possibly dressing.  There's a few departures, but even as much as I tried to categorize them some fall into multiple categories.

Enough yammer, let's get down to it!  I also plan to post a peaches & cream quinoa oatmeal in the next week, too, just as soon as I finish recovering from diverticulitis*.

(*I really cannot recommend any part of it, just FYI.)


I wanted to add in some of the stunning beautiful pictures that the recipe authors have on their pages, but almost none of them have their pictures watermarked and I didn't want to just steal their gorgeous work.  But please, please let me encourage you to click through the links if only to enjoy the bright, cheery colors!


Salads


Roasted Veggies


Beans
  • Thug Kitchen's chickpea tabbouleh
    • Quick note:  Thug Kitchen is my hero, but if strong language offends you then you'll want to give this one a skip.  On the other hand if you, like myself, want all your recipes to sound like they're written by Quentin Tarantino, then this is well worth a click if only for the laughs.
  • Mediterranean barley with chickpeas and arugula
    •  I seriously could eat chickpeas at every meal.  
  • Texas "caviar"
    • Do everyone you know a favor and bring this to the next potluck.  So, so addictive, and so healthy.  Impossible to go wrong!  I use it as dip or just eat it straight with a spoon.
  • Edamame salad
    • This is another super colorful salad: edamame, cranberries, carrots, peppers, corn (naturally), red onions, and sesame dressing.  Flawless.
  • Grilled eggplant and chickpea salad
    • See what I mean?  Chickpeas every day.


Quinoa

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