Beet and Quinoa Salad

Blogging Marathon# 65: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: 1 Vegetable -- 3 Dishes

Dish: Beet and Quinoa Salad with Spinach

I have another salad with beets today. This one's with quinoa, carrot, edamame and other delicious and nutritious super foods.

Recipe is from Cookie & Kate. Original recipe suggests using spiralized beets and carrots. Spiralized vegetables are quite a craze these days. I have one, but I haven't figured out how to use it yet. But grating the vegetables give the same salad almost same texture.

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Pasta Salad with Black Beans (Vegan recipe)

Memorial day is right around the corner and if you are looking for a dish to make, then here's an easy to make and tasty Pasta Salad with black beans and veggies. It's completely vegan, if you use vegan mayo but if you have regular mayo then go ahead and use it instead.

I am always looking for opportunities to try new dishes, so last weekend I took this pasta dish when I went to meet my blog buddies, Sushma, Rajani, Usha, Mir and Amara. The good thing about this dish is it can be made ahead of time and chilled until ready to serve, which makes it a great dish to make for picnics. barbecues or for take along lunches.

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Thai Coconut Lime Dressing (and a Salad) Vegan recipe

Blogging Marathon# 62: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Cook with Coconut

Dish: Thai Coconut Lime Dressing

Today's dish uses coconut milk in a very interesting way, in a salad dressing. I bookmarked this recipe from Food52 a while back and made it for this week's 'Cook with coconut' theme because who doesn't like creamy coconut dressing with Thai flavors and served with colorful veggies. I sure do :-)

This recipe could not be simpler, mix all the ingredients for the dressing, chop all the ingredients for the salad, cook rice and assemble. Original recipe used fish sauce in the dressing and I subbed it with low-sodium tamari (soy sauce would work well too). I'm sure fish sauce is much more flavorful than just soy sauce, so if you can your hands on some vegan or vegetarian fish sauce, by all means use that. This dressing is great for salads or as a dipping sauce for spring rolls or lettuce cups.

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Mexican Chopped Salad with Jicama

Blogging Marathon# 61: Week 3/ Day 2

Theme: Dishes using Root Vegetables

Dish: Mexican Chopped Salad with Jicama

Jicama has recently become one of my favorite vegetable. It is crispy, slightly sweet and very refreshing. It is a root vegetable and falls under the taproot category. Rutabaga, parsnip, daikon are few other veggies that fall under this category.

I wanted to take a picture of jicama and asked my son to pose. Then my daughter wanted to hold it too for the photos. But in the end I couldn't pick just one, so I'm posting both their pics.

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Brown Rice Bowl with Tofu and Veggies

Blogging Marathon# 61: Week 2/ Day 2

Theme: Meal Ideas

Dish: Brown Rice Bowl

My second meal idea after yesterday's South Indian meal this brown rice bowl with crispy tofu and vegetables. As I said yesterday, all of my dishes this week are centered around rice. We have started eating more brown rice these days, so I'm always in the look out for more recipes using it. This rice bowl recipe is from America's Test Kitchen newsletter.

This is a balanced meal with carbs, protein & veggies all served in one bowl. The list of ingredients is quite long but most well equipped kitchens will have all of the ingredients or a quick trip to the grocery store will do the trick.

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Taco Salad (Vegetarian Recipe)

Blogging Marathon# : Week 1/ Day 2

Theme: Taste of Home Top 100 recipes of 2015

Dish: Taco Salad
Today's dish from Taste of Home top 100 recipes is this delicious Taco Salad. I wanted to make taco salad for a while now and when I saw it on the top 100 I knew I had to give it a try. Original recipe also has cooked meat but I omitted it and just made the rest of the recipe.

Key to this recipe is the dressing that is made with Thousand Island dressing. You can either use store bought Thousand Island dressing or make it yourself at home. I didn't want to buy a jar since I know I will let it sit in the fridge for god knows how long.

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Greek Orzo Salad

Blogging Marathon# 60: Week 2/ Day 1

Theme: Take-Away dishes from Metropulos, Santa Barbara

Dish: Greek Orzo Salad
My theme for this week's blogging marathon is very interesting. Valli gave us a list of 10 best take-out restaurants in 3 travel destinations. We had to pick a destination and a restaurant from that list and cook 3 dishes for the week.

After a lot of browsing, I chose Metropulos restaurant from Santa Barbara. It is a fine foods market that sells amazing sandwiches, paninis and a ton of gourmet specialty food items. After reading about the place I have added it to my bucket list of places to visit :-)

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Jicama-Avocado Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette

I love trying new vegetables and the latest one I tried is Jicama (spelled as hi-ka-mma). Actually I bought it couple of times before, but I was hesitant to use them right away and by the time I was ready, they rotted :-( So this time, I made sure I had a recipe ready and I made it right away.
Jicama also known as Mexican yam or Mexican turnip is an edible tuberous root of a native Mexican vine. I was surprised that it is from a bean family because it almost looks like it belongs to the potato family. Another interesting thing is that the remainder of the jicama plant (except for the root) is poisonous.

Out side of a jicama is yellow and papery and needs to be peeled. Inside is crispy and resembles raw potato or pear. It tastes a little like apple but is not not sweet -- like a bland apple. It is usually eaten raw in salads and sometimes cooked in soups and stir-fried dishes.

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French Lentil Salad with Goat Cheese

Blogging Marathon #26: Week 2/ Day 2
Theme: Salads & Soups
Dish: Lentil Based - French (Puy) Lentil Salad

Today's salad has "Lentil" as the star ingredient and one of my favorite lentils in salads happens to be French Lentils aka Puy lentils. These lentils look very similar to whole masoor dal, but are greenish with spots. They don't fall apart and still have a good bite when cooked which is perfect for Salads. 

Today's salad is inspired from a recipe that I received in my mailbox from Everyday Food. Recipe was actually for roasted vegetable salad with french lentils, but what caught my attention was the use of goat cheese. I've tasted goat cheese a few times, but never bought it myself. So I picked a small log of goat cheese on my recent grocery shopping and make this hearty & delicious salad. Goat cheese is creamy and has a tart taste to it.

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Chickpea & Vegetable Salad with Yogurt Tahini Dressing

Blogging Marathon# 26: Week 2/ Day 1
Theme: Soups & Salads
Dish: Protein Based - Chickpea Salad

We are onto our 2nd week of marathon for this month. My theme for this week is "Soups & Salads" and to add interest and make the theme a little more challenging, Valli wants us to make soups & salads that use one star ingredient for each dish. Today's dish has a "Chickpeas" as the star protein rich ingredient.

I picked this theme because with my husband travelling on business for the past couple weeks I've been cooking for just myself. Salads fit right in since making a single serving salad is much easier than cooking something. 

This salad is full of fresh crunchy vegetables and fruits and the dressing is yogurt & tahini (ground sesame paste) based. I love adding sweetness to my salads in the form of fresh or dry fruits. Blueberries, sliced strawberries, chopped apples, pears, grapes are great in salads and so are dried cranberries, raisins and other not too sweet dry fruits.

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