whee!

Salad Season Has Arrived!

May 12, 2011 - Written by Diana

I arrived home from work to a hot and sweaty daughter studying at the computer.  When I mentioned dinner, she replied – anything but not hot.  Salad season is on folks, especially now.  This is the best time for fresh salads because salad greens love early spring best.  They don’t do so well in the super heat of the hazy summer end, but planting seeds outside in the end of winter will bring you perfect greens in the beginning of spring when the bugs are still on vacation.  I hope to have a few more cool evenings with warm tomato soup, stew or a roast, but I’m looking ahead to more salad days.

Tonight’s dinner was both quick and easy to prepare and all the ingredients in my fridge, so I didn’t have to run out for anything.  The quinoa was made up in a big batch but frozen in dinner size portions.  You can set it to defrost in the fridge, or if you are like me and deciding at the last minute, you can microwave for one minute, stir it around a little and it’s ready to go.  The rest of the ingredients came together into a nice salad …

Goat Meat Over Quinoa With a Side of Broccoli Raab and Prosciutto

April 29, 2011 - Written by Diana

Spring is crazy right now with this really strong winds and storms blowing through.  In the middle of it all, my garden started growing.  We have raised beds so our veggies don’t get over sogged and root rotted.  Too early for tomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash, but I have broccoli rabe.  I’ve never tried eating broccoli rabe before never mind growing it, but that’s the way I roll; grow it and see what we think.  I was surprised at how fast it sprouted up and grew tall with little floret heads.  For our roasted veggies on Easter, I threw in some rabe, tasting it with my mother in law first to try it out.  It had a little bit of a sharp taste – maybe bitter, but pretty good.  It was even better cooked.  So tonight’s meal I decided to cook up some goat to go over quinoa, and for the side I went and picked a bunch of broccoli rabe from the garden.  It’s amazing how much more there is today, just a …

Quick Quinoa Burgers

January 28, 2011 - Written by Diana

Quick Quinoa Burgers is from The 150 Healthiest 15-Minute Recipes on Earth by Jonny Bowden and Jeannette Bessinger.  When Deb, Desiree and I were younger, my dad tried the meatless burger thing.  He used birdseed – or rather millet, but they were dry and not very tasty.  I tried this meatless burger thinking it would end on the same note, but I really was surprised at how good they were.  No, they don’t taste like burgers, not at all, but they are packed with flavor.  Where the recipe said to use a quality salsa – I used my canned salsa.  Where it said to use canned kidney beans, I substituted pinto beans that I made up earlier in the week, and it had a little garlic flavoring in it.  I also topped the burger and sauce with chopped avocado.  Deb are you listening – this meal had quinoa, avocado and salsa in it, you will like it.

Ingredients:

(Burger)