Quinoa Black Bean Salad

                          

Quinoa Black Bean Salad is a quick, easy and healthy dish to prepare. This salad has a wonderful taste, nice aroma of garlic, olive oil and lime flavor. The brightness and color of the salad is best for parties. We love the quinoa salad at Costco and was eager to try this salad at home. Basically my husband is a soup and salad lover. I prefer making chickpeas cranberry pomegranate salad or black eyed pea salad or apple salad but wanted to give this a shot for a change and it worked wonders. Quinoa lovers, please refer our quinoa pulao posted earlier. Here's my version of the Costco's quinoa salad...

Ingredients 

• Quinoa - 1 cup (soak for 30 mins in water and wash well before use)
• Water - 1 1/2 cups
• Green bell pepper (finely chopped) - 1/2 cup 
• Red bell pepper (finely chopped) - 1/2 cup 
• Jalapeno (finely chopped) - 1
• Onion (finely chopped) - 1/2 cup
• Black olives - 1/3 cup 
• Black beans (I used tin) - 1/2 cup

For dressing 

• Garlic (finely chopped) - 3 cloves 
• Lime - 2
• Olive oil - 1/4 cup 
• Lime zest - 2 tsp
• Salt as needed 
• Pepper as needed 

Method 

• In a kadai, cook the quinoa with 1 1/2 cups of water. Once quinoa cooked, allow it to rest for sometime and fluff it with a fork. Keep it separately.
• Take a wide mixing bowl -  add onions, green & red bell pepper, jalapeno, black olives. 
• Drain water from black beans in the tin and wash it several times to remove the preservative smell.  
• Then add black beans to the bowl along with cooked quinoa.

                            

• Now start preparing the dressing for the salad in another bowl by adding the ingredients mentioned under " for dressing" one by one. Mix well. 
• Add the dressing to the bowl. Toss well with the quinoa.
• Quinoa black bean salad is ready to be served. 

                             

Tip 

• You can replace black bean with chickpeas or  black eye peas.
• You can add tomatoes without seeds. Its optional.
• You can add all colors of bell pepper to make it colorful.

     

Masala Pori/ Spicy Puffed Rice

One cold rainy evening, my friend and I were staying indoors at my friend’s place trying to study for an upcoming test. The weather outside was just not cooperative. It was getting as gloomy as it can get. All we wanted to do then was toss away the books, munch on something crunchy while sipping on a cup of hot tea and then sleep burrowing our heads inside a cozy blanket (of course, after praying that the test should get cancelled due to heavy rain!) 

As a wise man once said, “When you truly want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”, there came my friend’s mom with a bowl of this crunchy snack – ‘Masala Pori’ and a warm cup of tea! It was just the perfect timing…like the universe heard our prayers. Oh don’t give me that look and say it is an exaggeration. You should know what I am talking about, if not, you are not doing something right! Every time I eat this snack, I will be reminded of my friend and her mother. This is easily one of my favorite snack as it is not only tasty but also healthy and can be prepared in a jiffy.

P.S – We did toss away our books and did sleep like the dead after munching on these, followed by of course some gossip time (thanks to the tea), thinking the universe is on our side. But damn, we never knew that the universe can at times be the husband who fails to pay attention to the complete sentence!

(We did have the test. Can we just stop with that and not ask about the results? Thank you!)

Here is the recipe of ‘Masala Pori /Spicy Puffed Rice’, in case you are wondering why I started telling you this story!

How To Remove Carpet Stains

I know people with carpeted floors would agree with me when I say that maintenance is no easy job. And with pets at home?? No joke at all! Our ever so hyper puppy once hurt himself while playing and before we can even attend to him, he was running around all crazy. The result of which - Blood stains on carpets!

As luck may have it, I happened to come across a solution to remove carpet stains only recently. I gave it a try and know what, it worked like magic.

I think we are now friends enough for you to trust me when I say, this is the same carpet area as above. Yes it really worked. The difference in carpet color and texture in second picture is because of rubbing the mixture and dabbing it wet.

So here are the things you will need for the magic potion -

1. Baking Soda
2. Dish Washing Liquid
3. Wiping Cloth

Method:

1. Mix baking soda and dish washing liquid to form a thick paste.
2. Dab the washing cloth in the paste and gently massage through the stained area.
3. Using another cloth wet with water, clean away the residue that may be left.

Tips:

1. There can be some white stain left but that goes away after you clean it with a wet cloth (step 3)
2. Test a small section of your carpet area to check if it has a negative reaction which I don't think will be. But as always, precaution is better than cure.
3. Try to do it immediately after stain. I tried it when it was a fresh stain and not later. So I am not sure how effective it is later.