Monday, July 9, 2012

Meatless Monday - Roast vegetable and quinoa salad

I cannot believe how much I love quinoa. I'm usually scared of weird grainy type things, and I've had a real aversion to barley like, my whole life. I'm so glad I gave this a try, it has honestly made my quite-frequent salads just that little bit different. The fact that it's so healthy and packed with goodness is the best bonus of all.

Given my fear of grains, cous cous and I have never been friends. All the ideas I have for cous cous kinds of recipes are given a new lease on life with quinoa. It's never let me down.


For this, I boiled 1 cup of quinoa in two cups of water, simmered about 20 minutes, and left it to absorb whatever might be left and cool down a bit. It made a lot of salad for one girl, so I ended up making burgers from the remaining half I didn't eat. Recipe will be coming soon!

Ingredients:
2-3 cups cooked quinoa
100g feta, cubed
1 zucchini, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 red onion, peeled and cut into wedges
1/2 red capsicum, chopped
handful fresh basil, torn
pinch each sugar, salt and pepper
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Roast the tomato, zucchini and onion in a slow oven until just tender.

2. Mix the quinoa, veggies and feta. Add the sugar, salt and pepper (you might want to add more salt, I added quite a bit according to taste).

3. Stir through basil and red wine vinegar. Then add olive oil (in my head this means the vinegar will soak into the grains for better flavour without the grains first being coated by oil. I've no idea if this is even true!)




Linky bitz...


The linky will be up every Monday morning, and will stay up until the following Sunday. It doesn't matter if you eat your meal on a day other than Monday - it's just an easy day to create the link.

Grab the Meatless Monday button above and put it in your post, and even on your sidebar if you're feeling generous.

Visit at least one other blogger and leave some love. This is so much more cool if we're in it together!
Where it says "Name", you might like to add the name of your dish instead or as well.

*I have been meaning to investigate thumbnail links for this party, but it kept getting relegated down the to-do list. Anyway, reader RaNae asked last week if I'd considered it so I've upgraded my membership and voila! We have pictures! Thanks for that RaNae xx






35 comments:

  1. Susan @ food.babyJuly 9, 2012 at 7:56 AM

    Oh that looks gorgeous! Love love love this salad, will definitely be trying it!

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  2. I'm yet to make quinoa into a salad yet, quite shameful really. Your beautiful rainbow is inspiring me, though! :)

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  3. ive had quinoa sitting in my cupboard for a while - ive been a bit too scared to try it... however, roast vegetables with basil and feta... yep, think you have just convinced me ;)

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  4. Quinoa and veg, yum...
    You might like this too:
    http://ohsheglows.com/2011/01/21/red-quinoa-and-black-bean-vegetable-salad/
    Though in Australia black beans in a can are hard to come by, so they need to be cooked from scratch.
    I can't believe you don't like couscous - pour on boiling water, stir, wait 5 mins, done!

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  5. Kyrstie @ A Fresh LegacyJuly 9, 2012 at 2:40 PM

    Great minds think alike! I made a similar salad last night, we are also recently addicted to quinoa :)

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  6. I am a total quinoa convert.  I started out by doing the cous cous replacement thing...now it's a favourite extra to chuck into tagines and currys and I'm working my way up to trying it instead of porridge.  Quinoa + roasted veg, fresh herbs & feta = my idea of lunchtime perfection!  xx

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  7. This is going straight to the fridge. My food equivalent of the pool room. It just looks so darn tasty!!

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  8. I bought quinoa today, so I may have to try this one.  Thanks for sharing. :)

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  9. Looks really tasty.  I have tried with Quinoa before, but find it kinda bitter - maybe I am doing something wrong. I have been using the Quinoa flakes stirred into our porridge as it is just too good for you to not include somewhere in your diet but will have to give the salad thing a go again. Thanks for the inspiration Veggie Mama xx

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  10. I started off eating meatless on Mondays and now we don't eat meat during the week, usually and do have chicken on the weekend.  I love the new foods we are eating.

    Come on over and link up with my Meatless Mondays. http://sweetsav.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-meatless-mondays-red-pepper-and-corn.html

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  11. I am always looking for quinoa recipes.  This one looks delicious.

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  12. I really like quinoa too. It's so light compared to other grains ( I think it's actually classified as a berry) Your salad looks great.  This week I linked a recipe for homemade cucumber sour cream and dill salad dressing. Thanks for hosting

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  13. I am so excited to try out this recipe. I am always looking for great veggie recipes, and you make them look so easy and delicious!

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  14. Oh Yay  Pictures!! Your welcome this makes me want to repost all the meatless dishes I posted last week lol.  But I have a new one for tomorrow so I will be back and definitely gonna make this quinoa we love quinoa but your recipe looks wonderful.

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  15. I seriously can't believe how good it is :)

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  16. Well we're even, because I'm yet to make a sweet dish from it! Absolutely terrified.

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  17. Haha this was one gamble that paid off well for me! Quinoa is the bomb.

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  18. wow, that looks awesome! I always cook my black beans from scratch, and have a good old whinge here on the blog that the canned ones are so expensive, so I totally understand! I'm yet to try red quinoa though... I might give this recipe a whirl!

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  19. How good is it! I thought I wouldn't like the chewiness of it, but I really do.

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  20. I'm working my way up to the porridge thing too! It's a tough sell to get me to give up my steel cut oats even once :)

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  21. Perfect timing! Let me know how you go :)

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  22. Ooh that's interesting, I've never noticed a bitterness. I agree it's too good to pass up though. Let me know how you go!

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  23. Oooh that's way better than cutting out meat once a week! Well done! And how fun is it when you realise there's so much out there you weren't eating!

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  24. yes I should look at the recipes more, I tend to just make stuff up - but i'm positive there's yumminess out there I would never think up in a million years! I really liked the burgers this salad made too.

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  25. Ooh I wonder what that salad dressing would be like on a quinoa salad? Thanks for linking up, it sounds awesome!

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  26. Haha that's because they ARE! I'm all about simple and fast these days, but always about flavour :)

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  27. Yes I'd been terribly forgetful lately. That to-do list just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Looking forward to your new recipe!

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  28. Yay for pictures! :) I've also been a little iffy on trying quinoa, but I know I'll get there soon enough, if not only for that gorgeous salad you made! Thanks for the recipe and for hosting every week. Today I've linked up to some very yummy coconut black bean brownies.

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  29. Ooh I've seen recipes with black beans in brownies - is it as good as they say they are?

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  30. Yum, and I'm looking forward to your post on quinoa burgers! I discovered the wonders of quinoa this year, too - I love it for breakfast with coconut milk, raspberries, and toasted coconut flakes and walnuts :)

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  31. I'm yet to do a sweet version! I should probably stop wimping out ;-)

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  32. This was so delicious and the burgers were awesome too :)

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  33. I have just discovered quinoa too! Always on the hunt for great recipes.

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  34. I just had a cous cous salad for lunch and it totally wasn't the same :(

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