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.

     

Curd Rice/Thayir Sadam

Curd rice is a popular South Indian dish and very easy food to make. It tastes great with pickle or potato fry or simple kootu. If curd rice is made with fruits and nuts it's called as Bagala Bath. My husband is a big fan of seasoned curd rice, he'll be very happy even if I temper with mustard and curry leaves alone. Me too!!

Curd has a semi solid and creamy consistency. Curd helps you beat the heat in tropical countries. It's a diary product with the following health benefits like instant relief from diarrhea and dysentery, enhances digestion, zero carbs, sugar and trans fat.
                            

Ingredients

• Sona masoori - 1/2 cup
• Curd/ Yogurt - 1/2 cup
• Milk - 1/2 cup
• Mango (finely chopped) - 2tbsp
• Carrot (finely chopped) - 1tbsp
• Cilantro (finely chopped) - 1tbsp 
• Green Chilli (finely chopped) - 1
• Ginger (finely chopped) - 1tsp
• Salt - as needed

To temper 

• Oil - 2tsp
• Mustard - 1tsp
• Urad dhal - 1tsp
• Asafoetida - pinch
• Curry leaves - few 

Method

• Wash the rice and pressure cook with 1 & 1/2 cups of water for 4-5 whistles in medium flame. Once done immediately mash the rice well and add hot boiling milk, mix well. Add more water if needed. Allow the rice mixture to cool down.

                             

• Now add curd along with salt, all the chopped ingredients one by one.
• Then temper with the items given under 'to temper' table and mix well.

                             

 

Tips

• You can add cashew nuts, dry grapes, cucumber, pomegranate, grapes, apple etc. It's your call. 
• If your preparing for occasions then add butter for creamy and rich flavor.
• While tempering you can also add red chillies, that also gives a nice flavor  to the recipe. 
• Before adding curd, ensure the rice is cooled down, because it tends to cause curdling when rice is hot. This will cause the killing of bacteria in the curd, which will not be comfortable to the tummy!
• Always add hot milk to the rice. 
• If you are packing for lunch then add more milk and less curd, which will prevent the rice turning too sour/tangy. 
• If packing for kids, avoid green chilli. 

                               

 

Vegetable Pasta

Normally i do this vegetable pasta during weekend night for dinner along with garlic bread and orange juice. Any bachelor can try this recipe it is very easy to make, i used penne pasta but you can use your choice of pasta to this recipe. Here you go with spicy yummy vegetable pasta recipe!!

                        

                       

Tofu Fried Rice

Tofu Haters be like - Yikes! Tofu 

Me - I know, right? I never liked tofu until I tasted Veggie-Tofu Fry.
        Also FYI,tofu is rich in protein & calcium & has a low calorie count. 

Tofu Hater - Yeah OK! But it's so bland & boring!!

Me - That's the best part, right? It's like a blank canvas and it happily        absorbs whatever flavors you throw at it which makes it palatable.

Tofu Hater - so, how do you make this Tofu Fried rice? 

Me - it's very easy & can be done in a jiffy if you have leftover rice handy.                                  Here's how I do it :)

Quinoa Pulao

Quinoa is more a vegetable than a grain. It is tasty, a go-to diet for weight watchers and it is rich in fiber. Quinoa grain has balanced amount of amino acid, vitamins, minerals, fibers and proteins. It will satisfy your hunger and not make you feel deprived. The fiber found in quinoa will reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.It is a replacement for rice. For the first time,I had no idea how to cook it. But thanks to my sister, she gave me this healthy and delicious recipe. It can be cooked in many ways, one such is pulav. Stay tuned for many different dishes using Quinoa. This post is dedicated to my sister :) Here you go with the recipe.