Cold Quinoa Salad

Posted by amanda in budget, celery, cucumber, dressing, easy, healthy, quinoa, recipe, salad, tomato, vegetable, vegetarian, yellow pepper

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The finished product~

After all that holiday cheer (turkey pies, bacon based salads, and wines of all kinds), it might be time to get back to basics...like vegetables, and primary colors. This cold quinoa salad has both of those things, and is really easy to make. Though he might just be trying to placate me, M said he liked this one too. I adapted this recipe from a recipe on a box of Casbah quinoa...it didn't look like it would have enough crunch or flavor as it was originally intended, so I adjusted some quantities and ingredients to make up for that:

Fluff your quinoa to give it texture and to
make it grainy

First, cook up your quinoa (225g, or 1.5 cups):
To do this, bring 3 cups of vegetable broth to a boil.
Then add your quinoa to the broth; stir, and reduce the heat to low. Allow this to cook for between 15-20 minutes: you want the water to be completely absorbed by the quinoa.
When cooked, fluff the quinoa with a fork.
Let the quinoa cool while you prepare the rest of the salad ingredients.






In a large bowl combine:

Half a cucumber (I prefer skin intact) - thickly sliced and quartered
3-4 stalks of celery  - sliced
1 quart grape tomatoes - halved
1 yellow pepper - roughly chopped
(half a red onion would probably delicious chopped into this, though I didn't do so myself)
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley (you could up this even, especially if you love parsley, and go to 1/2 cup)









In a small bowl, whisk together:

Apple Cider Dressing

1/4 cup virgin olive oil
4 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1.5 clove garlic, minced
2 tsp red pepper flakes
3 or 4 good cracks of black pepper



Once the quinoa has cooled, combine it with the vegetables. Drizzle the dressing over the mixture and let sit in the fridge for a few hours to let the flavours settle.

A nice touch would be to add 2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach to the mix before serving.

Exciting Post-Holiday Broccoli Salad Update!!

Posted by amanda in brocolli, budget, dressing, easy, mayonaise, salad, vegetable, vegetarian

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So a few months back I posted a slapdash version (not that there's anything wrong with slapdash...amirite?) of my very own personal momma's broccoli salad - one that's been a holiday favorite chez our house since she made it for the first time a few years ago. So, this Christmas she asked me to make it to save her some chopping time, and sent me the recipe (no slapdashery at Reddick family Christmas). Much to my dismay I realized how very different her salad actually was from the one I'd put together here. BUT this can be good! Cause that one's yummy...and so is this one!


This salad takes a little chopping time, but the ingredients keep nicely once chopped. After this Christmas no less than SEVERAL boys asked me for this recipe. BOYS asked for SALAD. So, you know it's good :)

This is the body of the salad, but the original also calls for bacon. Probably a shit ton of bacon.

1 large head broccoli (or, two small heads) (cut into small pieces)
2 cups red grapes (cut in half)
1 cup celery (large dice)
1/2 cup onion (minced as thin as you can)
2/3 cup slivered almonds (lightly toasted)

I doubled that for our family dinner of 13 guests. Notably, this salad keeps fairly well, and makes a great lunch, (probably even greater with aforementioned bacon) so it's nice to make up a double batch and keep it in the fridge.

Try not to think about the dressing too much: it's a combination of mayonnaise, sugar, and vinegar. The amounts are sort of up to personal taste, though it's mostly mayonnaise.


To dress the doubled ingredients, you're looking at roughly:

1 cup of mayonnaise
1/3 cup of sugar (though I always use a little less of this than even I call for here)
2 tablespoons of vinegar


Add it to your mix of veggies in spoonfuls only until it's as coated as you like it - I find that these amounts are the easiest to get the right tangy to sweet proportion of, but make a bit too much dressing to actually use. Another suggestion then, is to just keep these proportions in mind, and sort of wing it with the dressing, tasting as you go. It always turns out delicious, so don't sweat it :) I'll post a picture of mine the next time I make it (M ate all the leftovers, which is a very very good sign).




Add in the toasted almonds last.

 Happy (late) new year from Stute Kitchen! Stay tasty ;)

Spinach Pear and Parmesan Salad with Balsamic Mustard Dressing

Posted by amanda in budget, cheese, dressing, easy, recipe, salad, spinach, vegetarian

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This salad is really easy, and could be made really beautiful with a little careful pear-placement. I tend to go right in for chaotic salads, but you could make something quite pretty out of this one.

For the dressing, whisk together

3 parts olive oil

1 part balsamic vinegar

.5 tablespoon whole grain mustard

1 tsp brown sugar

a dash of salt

(These are my preferred ratios, and probably makes enough for two servings, however give it a shot and adjust to meet your own needs and tastes)

Drizzle this over
2 bartlett pears, sliced very thin, length-wise (one per person)
1.5-2.5 cups baby spinach per person

Once dressed, toss in half a cup of freshly grated parmesan (though not pictured here, shaved parmesan "petals" make for a sharper, more assertive parmesan presence that is super delicious. Saputo Parmesan Petals are my flowery cheese source of choice!).

Serve immediately

Cottage Component 1: Picnic-Perfect Summer Salad

Posted by amanda in budget, celery, cucumber, dill, dressing, easy, feta, healthy, onion, pasta, pasta salad, pepper, quick, recipe, salad, spinach, tomato, vegetarian, yellow pepper

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It's summer tiiiimmmme and the cooking is eeeeaasy here at Stute-kitchen :) Team Stute has returned from a fantastic weekend away at a cottage with good friends, gorgeous weather, and GREAT food. Combining our forces we came up with a delicious cottage-time lunch: pasta salad and barbecued skewers. Fresh ingredients and a new spin on these old classics takes traditional summer food to a new level of goodness.

You're gonna need:

• Roughly 2 generous cups of uncooked shell (conchiglie) pasta
• One yellow pepper, seeded and cut into slim chunks (or however you like your pepper in a salad), if you go really chunky, use 2 peppers
• Half a cucumber, sliced into half circles
• 2-3 stalks of celery, diced roughly
• 1 pint (usually a container) of cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
• 1/4 of a sweet onion (though any kind would likely do, this salad gets more onion-y the longer it exists, so choose wisely), finely chopped
• 3 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
• 3-5 generous handfuls of baby spinach (mixed greens will do in a pinch, but they don't keep as long once the dressing is mixed in).

Dressing: Whisk together...

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 heaping  tbsps Red Wine Vinegar
1 clove of garlic, minced
Ground Black Pepper to taste

Topper:

Roughly 1.5 cups of light feta cheese -though really, add as much or a little as you like - , rinsed, dried, and crumbled (my new technique is to rinse the block from the brine, and then squeeze the liquid out in my fist, over the sink - this dries and crumbles simultaneously, then you can just brush your hands off in the salad)

To assemble:

1. Cook the pasta (roughly 8-10 minutes to get it al dente), rinse in cold water, and set aside.

2. Combine all your veggies, except the spinach, in a large bowl, using your hands to mix gently, being
sure to distribute the dill.

3. Add pasta to veggies, again, stirring with hands.

4. Add spinach by handful, assessing how much or how little you will want personally. Mix with hands (this avoids breaking the pasta shells)

5. Pour dressing over pasta and veggies (if you don't like getting oily, use a utensil here, but I swear, hands is the way to go)

6. Chill.
7. Crumble feta into salad before serving. Mix.

This makes roughly 10 servings, depending on the appetites in the room. Be sure to wait 20 minutes or so before hitting the lake!!!
-A