It's only 1:39 and I have had such a productive day! I got a new job (yay!), and start Monday. So I have today to take a bit of a breather, and did some food shopping at Everything Natural as well as the regular grocery store. I've made a beautiful lunch, and have a lovely dinner planned! First things, first, this is what you can toss together if you have about 30-40 minutes on your hands!





I've decided that I need to take photos of the process rather than just the end product. This particular salad is inspired by tabbouleh. It began as version of the Arabic dish using quinoa instead of bulgur wheat, but I ended up adding a bunch of stuff that one does not add to that dish, for the sake of using veggies before they go bad. I'm incredibly determined to use up the massive amount of kale I have before it rots. So this is how this recipe was born!





If you have never used or heard of quinoa before, it's a remarkable little grain. It kind of looks like couscous, but it has a complete protein profile. It contains all of the amino acids necessary for our health. It's popular among the vegan/vegetarian crowd for that reason. It also is very easy to make! You make it much in the same way that you make rice or oatmeal. Use the ratio of 1 part quinoa to 2 parts liquid. I usually use water, but you can also use vegetable broth if you like. Rinse your quinoa, add it to a saucepan with the water, and cook over high heat until it absorbs all the liquid and becomes fluffy.









Next you steam your kale. As I was saying before, I am currently trying to use as much of it as possible, and steaming it reduces it in size, so you can eat MORE! I put a large pot on the stove and filled it 3/4 o the way full of washed and cut kale, and added about 1.5 cups of water and covered it. It took less than five minutes to cook down.













While everything was cooking, I prepped my other veggies, made easier by my handy dandy ninja blender, which doubles as a processor! I added red onion and a few baby bella mushrooms to the blender and processed and transferred the chopped veggies to a large bowl.

















I added a few cloves of garlic to that with the garlic press, and added a few dashes of coconut aminos and stirred it all up. Aminos are a soy sauce substitute; they often have less sodium than soy sauce and add a nice flavor. (This was one of my Everything Natural purchases today!)









After the quinoa was cooked, I added it to my chopped veggies and combined. I also added about 1/4 cup lite coconut with a squeeze of half a lemon. I added a can of cannellini beans, and chopped up a few roma tomatoes. I chopped up some mint and cilantro and added that before finally adding my finished kale and combined the ingredients. Tabbouleh traditionally also contains flat-leaf parsley, but I don't have any at the moment, so I skipped it. After I let it chill in the refrigerator for about an hour and a half, it was ready to eat, and it was fan-freaking-tastic!





A new favorite!





Ingredients:





1 cup uncooked quinoa

3.5 cups water, separated

1 extra-large bunch of kale, trimmed, cleaned, and cut

1 medium red onion

2 baby bella mushrooms

2 cloves garlic, minced

Juice of 1/2 lemon

4 tbsp chopped mint

4 tbsp chopped cilantro

1 15.5 oz can of cannellini beans, rinsed

4 Roma tomatoes, chopped

1/2 avocado, diced

1/4 cup lite coconut milk

1-2 tbsp liquid aminos/low sodium soy sauce

1 tbsp flax

1 tbsp chia seeds





Directions: