Quinoa Salad with Berries and Watermelon

A summer quinoa salad studded with fresh, ripe fruit.

Summer Simplicity

I cook sparingly in the heat of summer. And only if I absolutely have to. It's one of the perks of being a grown up- and post empty nest. We cook if we feel like it. And if we don't? We grab some baby spinach and chard, frisee and herbs and make a salad. We like to keep things simple.

That's no surprise to you, I'm sure.

I don't exactly do elaborate. We don't go for complicated around here. And goddess knows, we don't do formal. If we can toss together a bowl of fresh salad greens and herbs, and add some quickly cooked protein to make a meal of it, we're content. We might add strips of organic free-range chicken grilled with lemon and black pepper. Or a piece of wild salmon broiled with a touch of agave and lime. Perhaps an organic boiled egg. Or two. If we're lucky, some leftover cooked quinoa.

Dinner in a flash.

Quintessential summer.

So today's post (and recipe) is a nod to the natural marriage of summer and simplicity. Get out of the house. Step away from the screen.

Disconnect.

Reconnect.

This coming Independence Day, celebrate your independence from gluten!

Happy July Fourth!



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Quinoa Taco Salad

Taco Salad Days

Looking for a fresh idea for a summer picnic or backyard get-together? This cool and breezy quinoa taco salad might be just what you're craving. Laced with lime juice and sea salt, the combo of fluffy quinoa and ripe avocado, spiked with red onion and sunny sweet pepper, served on a crisp bed of romaine lettuce, is a light and healthy twist on the salsa drenched bean and cheese heavy taco salads so ubiquitous years ago.

It's a total win for gluten-free vegans and vegetarians.

And let's face it.

Quinoa is much more hip than canned re-fried beans.

The inspiration for a quinoa taco salad was sparked over on the Gluten-Free Goddess Facebook page. Reader (and long distance friend) Patsy commented on a thread about Memorial Day picnic salads, mentioning her current fave, quinoa taco salad.

We all perked up. 

Quinoa? As a taco salad? Brilliant. 

Patsy generously shared her recipe with me. It called for diced tomatoes, black beans and cheese, so I revamped the flavors to create a FODMAPs-friendly dairy-free vegan version. Quinoa is a complete vegetarian protein, so you really don't need the black beans (as a complementary protein), unless, of course, you're fond of those fiber rich little beauties in your quinoa salad.

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Gorgeous Quinoa Side Dish

A dazilious red quinoa salad with fruit and vegetable jewels.

Today's recipe is perfect for Fall. It's a beautiful red quinoa recipe I tossed together one weeknight, featuring roasted butternut squash, cranberries and pecans.

Classic Autumn flavors.

Gorgeous color.

Serve this as a colorful vegan side dish.

Or stuff a vegetable (it would be fab and hip served in roasted bell pepper halves).

Red quinoa has a milder taste than the standard quinoa.

So if you think you don't like quinoa, try the Inca red.

I suspect you'll convert to quinoa love.

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Kale + Quinoa Salad with Tangerines

Kale salad with tangerines, quinoa, and almonds.

My Kale Crush

Something has frozen over. Or maybe pigs are flying. I actually, um, like kale. After all my mocking, my nose crinkling, my eye rolling. After tweeting disparagingly about the taste of this dark leafy green (I believe the word I used was swampy). Behold. I am converted. I have seen the light.

The turning point? Lacinato kale (also called Tuscan black kale, or dinosaur kale). The long, slender leaves are delightfully un-swamp like. And unlike many good-for-you greens, there is little bitterness to harsh your mellow. Lacinato (like its curly kale cousin) does benefit from massage- especially in silky extra virgin olive oil.

But then Darling- what doesn't?

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Quinoa Salad with Pears, Baby Spinach

Vegan Gluten-Free Bliss

If you're looking for a fresh idea to liven up your ho-hum salad plate, Babycakes, have I got a recipe for you. Light, vegan, and packed with protein, this is no ordinary bunny food. It's got teeth- er, I mean, quinoa. Studded with nutty, buttery chick peas and crunchy toasted pecans and succulent jewels of ripe, juicy pears. And did I mention, in a bowl licking maple vinaigrette?

In fact, this is a salad even salad haters would eat. You know, those stalwart gotta have my meat and potatoes aficionados who eschew anything leafy. Who snicker at fiber. And mock carrot sticks. The sort of individual who gets misty eyed for melted butter and bacon martinis. To said individuals, salad could never be anything but rabbit chow. But this lovely mélange of flavors just might pique their interest. The sheer luxurious deliciousness of these autumnal flavors might coax them into flirting with bunny food goodness. Just this once. Then- who knows what could happen? They might settle in, fork poised, all dubious and dreaming of rib eye. They might take a bite. And then another. And another. And before you can say blueberry pancakes on a stick- they might actually smack their lips and grin and hold out their empty plate for more.

And you.

You could smile back, sly and slow, as you reach for the serving spoon to comply with their new found desire.

And feed their craving.


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Grilled Veggie Quinoa Salad

The jewels of summer- grilled vegetables- make a gorgeous quinoa salad.

Everyone loves a good old fashioned barbecue. The easy conviviality of a family backyard picnic. The smoky summer scent of charred goodies grilling. Lemonade chilling. Badminton birdies sailing. The crack of croquet balls. The last pink of June daylight. Punching lids on firefly jars. It's the stuff of a midsummer night's dream.

But if you need to be on a gluten-free diet- or if you happen to be vegan- or allergic to wheat- barbecues can be a tad less than convivial. Those mysterious grilling sauces and marinades (so often containing wheat-laced soy sauce). Those gluten-rich fluffy hot dog buns. All those meaty manly burgers and boiled egg dotted salads.

What's a gluten-free vegan to do?

Munch on lettuce?

Don't worry, Babycakes. I've got your back.

How about a light and summery quinoa salad with grilled corn, fresh parsley, lemon, and chopped mint topped with smoky grilled veggies- velvety red onion, sliced zucchini, charred bell peppers, portobello mushrooms, tender-crisp asparagus and butter soft eggplant?

A veritable vegan feast.

Gluten-free.

Fabulous.

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Quinoa Salad with Baby Spinach and Grape Tomatoes

Quinoa salad with baby spinach and tomatoes.

Quinoa + Spinach = Salad Days

Here is a wonderful year-round salad that is inviting, fresh and vibrant. The sort of salad a certain individual needs on a damp, late winter day when the sky is paper white and the clouds are thick with snow. On a day such as this it is tempting to head straight for comfort food. That leftover Kicked Up Baked Mac 'n Cheese in the fridge. That wedge of Roasted Vegetable Kugel. But what the body craves may- or may not be- what the body needs.

I'm just saying.

I'm no expert on cravings. But I do know that if I make a habit of indulging every gnawing whim and urge that wiggles its way into my sun deprived brain I'd munch Blueberry Crumb Cake for breakfast and eat Horseradish Spiked Red Potato Salad every noon hour from now till the Vernal Equinox (a serotonin-boosting strategy not recommended, by the way, for those of us past a certain age where you can pack on voluptuous pounds faster that you can say blueberry pancakes on a stick).

It also doesn't help that yours truly sports three honkin' titanium screws in the left hip joint, curtailing one's enthusiasm for certain popular aerobic routines. Maybe if I Zumbaed I'd still fit into my summer winter jeans. As of last week there's not a pair of jeans in the house I can riggle into. [And by the way, why do doctors insist on referring to hip screws as pins, embroidering knitting group safe visions of a petite and delicate procedure that in no way involved a couple of workbench sized clamps and a battery operated power drill?]

All I can say is thank goddess for black leggings. Paired with a tunic top they hide a multitude of muffins.

And cake.

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Quinoa + Roasted Brussels Sprouts, Leeks, Almonds

Gluten-free quinoa with Brussels sprouts, leeks and almonds.

It might be love.

If you've been hanging with me for awhile here on Gluten-Free Goddess, you already know how much we dig quinoa. It's one of our favorite gluten-free grains. I've grown to love- even crave- quinoa's distinct smoky-nutty flavor. More assertive than rice or oatmeal, the taste of quinoa gives gluten-free baked goods and grainy side dishes a certain je ne sais quoi that feels nourishing, healthy, and satisfying all at once.

In a very understated, happy blue skies kind of way, I mean.

Not in a pious eat-this-it's-good-for-you kind of way.

Though I'm sure there are plenty of quinoa converts that proselytize its admirable qualities in the nutrition arena (and why not? Its protein profile is a vegan's wet dream) I prefer to love my quinoa on its own unassuming terms. Even though folks have dubbed her Queen of Grains and Mother of all Vegan Goodness in the Bunny Scampering Universe, I love her just because. Without projection. Without expectation. Or assumption.

I meet quinoa where she stands. I accept her for who she is. In all her cute as a button faux grain glory. After all, her botanical name is Goosefoot. Not a very glamorous moniker. Imagine being saddled with that one.

Hey, you! Goosefoot.

That's right. I'm talking to you.

Sweet Mother Mary. Can you imagine? No wonder she chose to change her name. "Keen-wa" is so much sexier.

So Quinoa, honey. What are you doing tonight? Wanna come over? I've got some Adele.

You can even stay for breakfast.

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Frosted Carrot Cake Quinoa Bars

Frosted carrot quinoa bars. Gluten-free. Dairy-free.

Gettin' Fancy

My intrepid husband slash sous chef was craving a carrot cake style quinoa bar for a mid-morning snack. To be exact, he said, Hey. I'm craving a carrot cake style quinoa breakfast bar. You know. For breakfast. To which yours truly replied, Look who wants to get fancy. My chocolate chip quinoa breakfast bars aren't good enough for you? Now you need frosting? To which said long suffering husband replied, Frosting makes everything better.

Who am I to argue with that?

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Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange

Fresh, bright quinoa salad with oranges and roasted beets.

Roasted Beets + Quinoa

February second. We survived January, Darling. Happy Groundhog Day to you. Happy Imbolc. The dwindling of winter is at last within reach- no matter what Punxatawny Phil predicts. Six weeks is doable. After all, there is chocolate. Downton Abbey 2. And soup. And our hope-fueled New Year betterments are still on track (right?). If not, the year is young. Tomorrow is a fresh start. To celebrate, let's throw a party. My contribution? A gluten-free vegan salad that is perfect for parties.

Because throwing a party is a tad more complicated than it used to be.

There are vegans to accommodate. And newly gluten-free friends and neighbors to feed. And let's face it. Everyone is a wee bit bored by those layered taco bean dips and pork sliders. Gooey meat and cheese is so predictable. Pizza dips are so frat house.

Why not go fresh and breezy instead?

Be good to your body.


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Quinoa Salad with Pineapple, Broccoli, Mint

Pineapple quinoa salad with broccoli. Fresh and healthy.

Quinoa Salad Recipe for Spring


Spring is beckoning. I can feel it. And my winter-stiff body is aching to stretch and move and shed the yearly inertia that descends like a bear with the shrinking daylight. My brain is flickering awake. My taste buds are tiring of the heavy, creamy comfort foods that sustained me (thank you, lovely spuds, lasagna, and mac and cheese, I love you with all my heart).

I'm craving lighter, cleaner tastes.

Not to mention, missing my warm weather jeans. You know the ones. That stack in the back of the closet you haven't fit into since December, when you began wondering if the laundromat medium heat setting was shrinking your favorite Levi's. The jeans you have to lay down to zip, doing your best imitation of Jane Fonda's pelvic tilt, sucking in your breath and praying to the zipper gods. Your skinny jeans. You know what I'm talking about. You have two sets of jeans, right? Winter. And summer.

So here's what I'm thinking. Quinoa to the rescue.

Vegan. Versatile. Easy. Fresh. Light. This new quinoa salad with pineapple and broccoli and fresh mint is all of the above. And maybe, just maybe, it'll be the first step to fitting into those skinny jeans.


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Quinoa Mushroom Pilaf

Quinoa pilaf with mushrooms, scallions and bell peppers.

New Queen on the Block

In between bouts of rain and nostalgia (I prickle using the word nostalgia, to be honest; it smacks of sentimentality, not a trait I cultivate or suffer gladly, but I'll get to that later) I've been craving quinoa like there's no tomorrow, as if I'm living in my own post-apocalyptic genre movie, foraging for nuts and berries on a desert highway in my fashionably shredded mud spattered get-up complete with goggles and chain link bracelets, wishing I had the taut burnished thighs of Tina Turner instead of my own wobbly, pale set of limbs.

Yeah. I'm talking voracious.

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Summer Quinoa Salad

Summer Magic = Quinoa Salad

I've written about quinoa more than once, so I doubt, Dear Reader, you need me to list all the pro-quinoa reasons why you should try this gluten-free faux grain. You already know it's high in protein. You know how easy it is to cook. You are well aware that quinoa works as a salad- warm or cold- or as stuffing for big juicy mushrooms or rather unconventional stuffed cabbage rolls that might cause your Bubbe to sit up straight in her chair and say, Oy, have I never heard of such a thing! Where do you get these ideas, Shayna Punim?

So I'm not going to wax all educational on ya.

I'd rather wax philosophical. I haven't felt practical. Or pragmatic. Truth is, I sold off furniture to be here. To get out. It's been a long, dry three years in the desert, and living here in Santa Monica is like living inside an intricate dream. The edges here are soft. The colors are gauzy with the salt air. We walk the winding path in Palisades Park at dusk and pass by strangers who meet our eyes and smile- ever so slightly.

As if we share a secret.

Splashes of conversations in Russian, Armenian and Polish float and disappear into the on-shore breeze, curling around the trill of a flute by the park's rose garden in full bloom. The flutist is a young woman with long chestnut hair. She sits on the same park bench every evening in her summer sweater, answering the colors of the petals with her music.

If heaven exists it lives by the sea.

Because the sea invades your bones with a tidal code, a code without words or sound other than the surf that tugs you toward its foamy edge in a way you can't explain. The ocean becomes a big unspoken pull in your life and her maternal grip is fierce. Jung likened the sea to the realm of the unconscious, and there is that, too. The deep. The blue-green dark. Thick with life. And dreams.

And here is the honest truth. If I have to leave in August, if the house in New Mexico has not sold by then after yet another price reduction (below what we paid for it) and we have to return to pragmatism, to another year of waiting it out, if we have to return to life in the desert, that brittle, fragile life in dry isolation, away from this garden of imagination and diversity, I will need every single speck of will power and resignation and zen surrender I can scratch up and muster to keep my heart from breaking.

In the meantime, here is a recipe for quinoa I dreamed up. 

To flute music.

Karina's Quinoa Salad Recipe with Yellow Tomatoes, Kalamata Olives, Basil and Mint

Recipe posted July 2009.

Summer is the time for picnics and salads that are easy as pie to toss together. Make this tabbouleh inspired quinoa early in the day, before the heat zaps your cooking mojo. It only gets better the longer it chills. The Mediterranean flavors co-mingle their little hearts out.

Amounts are approximations, a template to guide you. Salad making is more of an art than science.

Ingredients:

1 clove of garlic, peeled

2 1/2 to 3 cups cooked quinoa *see How To Cook Quinoa the Super Easy Way

A handful of sweet grape tomatoes- yellow is low acid, and delicious

1 carrot, grated

4 scallions, sliced (white and light green sections)

1/4 cup Kalamata olives, whole or pitted and chopped

1/3 cup slivered nuts- pecans, almonds or walnuts

Sea salt and pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil leaves

1-2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint leaves

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Juice of 1-2 lemons or limes, depending upon size

Instructions:

Rub the clove of raw garlic inside a glass or ceramic salad bowl.

While the cooked quinoa is still a bit warm (but not steaming hot) scoop it into a bowl and fluff with a fork.

Halve or quarter the yellow tomatoes and add them to the bowl. Add in the grated carrot, sliced scallions, Kalamata olives, and slivered nuts. Toss lightly to combine.

Season with sea salt and ground pepper. Add the chopped fresh herbs. Drizzle the salad with extra virgin olive oil- enough to moisten. Toss to distribute. Squeeze a lemon or a lime all over the salad and toss.

Taste test (this is the fun part). Adjust the seasonings. Does it need more olive oil? Salt? More citrus? Is there a good balance of quinoa and add-ins?

When the seasoning tastes right, cover and chill until serving (at least one hour, but a few is even better).

Before serving, taste again and readjust seasonings if you need to. Chilling summer salads- such as quinoa, rice or potato- dulls certain flavors a bit.

Serve as a side dish. Your gluten-free peeps and vegan friends will thank you.

Makes roughly 4 to 6 servings.

Quinoa Vegetable Stir-Fry

Delicious quinoa stir-fry with summer vegetables.

Easy. Easy. Easy.

Trying to find a Los Angeles sublet for the summer- within our budget- is as slippery and twisted as charting Madonna's romantic liaisons post Guy Ritchie. It's a serpentine endeavor, this whole reading between the lines thing, deciphering what is true and what is only mostly true. It's all those key buzz words peppering Craig's List and Westside Rentals. "Convenient to the 10" can mean the eastern bedroom window sucks in freeway exhaust during rush hour. "Pet friendly" might translate to everyone in the building works all day and leaves their poor pooches to yap and woof until the cows come home. Which, as we all know, in LA is after sushi and mojitos.

"Cozy studio" can mean cute and comfy or it can mean as cramped and tight as a walk-in closet. Not Madonna's closet(s). I'm sure hers are bi-coastal and coordinated by era, each epoch's collection larger than our entire casita. We're talking my closet here. The five foot black hole currently crammed with winter parkas, too many mismatched socks to count, and the book-filled boxes I'm storing for this alleged, yet-to-materialize summer getaway.

And the price for the privilege of said 150 square feet of space in Venice Beach?

If you have to ask, Darling, you can't afford it. Which as it turns out, is a moot detail anyway, because no one on Craig's List ever answers your e-mails (especially when they notice your out of town area code). So here we sit. Grazing the Internet till the migraines kick in, picking through rentals beyond our budget, hoping for an affordable hidden gem amongst the inflated glut of summer housing in Los Angeles. Unless we're looking for a roommate. We could afford one room. Shared bath. With a UCLA student.

So what am I cooking during all this rental drama, you impatiently ask as I ponder our next move?

That would be quinoa.

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Vegan Garden Loaf with Maple Apricot Glaze

Delicious vegan garden loaf with quinoa.

Go ahead and snicker. I'll wait. I'm fully aware that veggie loaves are the punch line for many a joke in Burger King sponsored sit-coms and pseudo-reality shows pitting sweaty cranky chefs against each other for the promise of fame and fortune. So do your thing. Snort. Sigh. Bare your teeth. I can handle it. 

Vegetarians and vegans endure more than their fair share of indiscreet eye-rolling.

I know this first hand. Because I've been a vegetarian and sometimes vegan for most of my life. Four decades. And after my medically recommended foray back into Omnivore Land (to jump start the healing of my broken hip) now that I am vertical and ambulatory without a cane I am once again whistling past the graveyard into familiar territory, leaving behind the protein I flirted with, listening to my body's need to get back to the garden, back to my first love, my culinary Eden. My natural preference, before The Fall.

I tell you this without judgment. 

I mention this without pressure of any kind. Seriously. I'm not proselytizing. Goddess knows, I understand better than most how hard it is to eat in this gluten infused world of ours without whittling down our choices even further. If you love your bacon and eggs, Babycakes, go rustle up some grub.

Gnaw on some haggis.

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Quinoa Stuffed Portobellos

Quinoa stuffed portobello mushrooms are a lovely vegan nosh.

The stars are tuning their alignment in our favor. After eighteen months on the market (and more than once price reduction along the way) there are rumblings of a house sale. Negotiations are afoot. We are walking on Easter egg shells through the weekend. Monday will bring us definitive news. Send kind and generous thoughts to our buyer. Wish him luck with his bank.

We've been preparing for good news, sorting through books both old and new. Stripping away much of what we've accumulated since our last move. Lugging movies and art books and cookbooks off in recycled Whole Foods bags to the used book store in Santa Fe. Those things we carry.

Trading media for food.

We took the cash and bought wine, gluten-free flours, olive oil and boxes of tea. Not enough to last through May. On purpose.

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How To Cook Quinoa in a Rice Cooker (with recipes)

How do you cook quinoa? I was recently asked. The answer is simple.

Easy. Fast. Rockin'.

I cook it in a rice cooker.

In fact, quinoa is the easiest no-fuss "grain" you'll ever cook. It's healthy fast food. Cook up a batch ahead of time and you can stir up a fabulous light lunch (like the Lime Quinoa Salad with Mint) in a New York minute.

Well, maybe a Los Angeles minute. No wait.

A Venice Beach minute.

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Quinoa Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

Quinoa stuffed cabbage. How's that for nontraditional?

It was a dark and stormy night... 

Wait. This is a recipe post. Let me start again. Got your cocoa? Are you settled?

Chapter 1.

The tight blue tiled kitchen glowed in the afternoon sun that slatted through the western facing junipers and spilled across the cupboards in a honeyed glaze so dazzling she had to lower her eyes to keep from squinting like a cowboy as she grabbed a frayed dish towel and cracked the oven door. The scent of sweet potatoes, apples and onion laced with garlic, nutmeg and cinnamon filled the room. She tugged her worn wooden spoon from the mustard crock and stirred the tender jewels bathed in apple juice. For the first time in days she felt connected to something tangible.

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Gluten-Free Quinoa, Rice, and Sides

Karina's Favorite Quinoa, Rice, 

& Vegan Side Dish Recipes

My favorite gluten-free vegetarian side dish recipes often include quinoa (here is an easy way to cook quinoa), baked rice, risotto, cornbread stuffing, roasted vegetables, and calabasitas.

Reader favorites include Horseradish Spiked Red Potato Salad and Lime Quinoa Salad with Mint. (Be sure and rinse quinoa thoroughly in cold water before cooking.)

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Quinoa Salad with Lime + Fresh Mint

Quinoa salad with fresh lime and mint.

This is the post where I confess, Dear Reader, that I am now pear-shaped and lumpy and thick in the middle- obviously adept at gaining weight. I may even be considered gifted. This is not fun for me. But then, who promised fun during hip surgery recovery? Who said it would be easy? (Um, no one.) Throw menopausal hormone pandemonium into the sticky mix and you have a double roll nightmare.

I gained fifteen eighteen twenty damn pounds.

And who claimed that wedges of Green Chile Cornbread and Strawberry Chocolate Chip Scones and Peach Crisp were calorie-free, anyway? Certainly not moi. But geesh. 

How much can a girl give up in one lifetime?

So the rumors are true. Your intrepid plucky gluten-free goddess is trying the South Beach Diet. Or as well as one can follow the famous low glycemic diet without the comfort of dairy foods (on my allergen verboten list). This should be interesting.

Lucky for me I have a Guru.

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