Kelley Bromley

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 small sweet red pepper
• 4 stalks green onion
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 large handful of fresh parsley
• 8 or so fresh mint leaves
• extra virgin olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste

Quinoa (keen-waa) isn’t that popular in North America, but it’s nice to try something different. Quinoa is the edible seeds of the goosefoot plant and is grown in South America. It was highly appraised by the Incas who called it the “mother of all grains” (Wikipedia:Quinoa). This was the first time I have tried to cook it and I’m quite pleased with the results. It’s not hard to cook at all!

Before you use quinoa you should wash it really well in a large bowl by swishing it around. The seeds are covered with a soapy substance that will make your quinoa taste bitter if you don’t wash it off. Transferred it to a strainer and ran cold water through it.

Put the quinoa in a non-stick pot and add the broth. Bring to a boil and simmer 15 to 20 minutes or until quinoa is translucent and the white thread-like attachment just starts to separate. Let it cool to a warm (but not cold) temperature.

While the quinoa is cooking toss your pine nuts in a small non-stick skillet to toast them. They will taste much more flavourful when they’re toasted and less acidic. Keep on eye on them until they start to brown up, stirring when necessary. You don’t need to use any oil for this, the nuts have enough oil already. Put aside when done.

Chop the green onion into 1/4″ thick segments and place in a large bowl. Dice the red pepper and finely chop the parsley and mint and add them to the bowl. Grate the zest from half a lemon and add. Toss in your pine nuts. Into a smaller bowl, squeeze half the juice from the lemon half and add about 1 tbsp of olive oil. Mix and set aside.

Add your warm quinoa and mix. Add the lemon dressing and salt/pepper to taste. Stir well and serve.

This salad has a great fresh taste and is very filling and nutritious. Serves 3 generously.

• 1 whole tilapia
• 1/2 lemon
• fresh dill
• fresh parsley
• salt & pepper to taste

You can use frozen tilapia for this recipe, or any other whole fish for that matter. The fish should not smell “fishy” and the eyes should be clear. Make sure it is gutted and de-scaled. Rinse out the inside of the fish well. Cut lemon into slices and put inside cavity of fish. Add parsley and dill. Salt & pepper the skin and place on a greased pan. Bake at 350F until fish flakes easily, approximately 15 minutes.

The cooked fish. I added onion powder on top but I wouldn’t do that again, it interferes with the fresh taste of the natural flavours. To serve, pull off the head and carefully cut the top fillet away from the rib cage and backbone. When the top fillet is removed, peel off the backbone, ribs, and fins, then serve the bottom fillet. Serves 2.

Since we’re rally getting into cooking lately, and since my recipe section has been neglected for a significant period of time, I am making some slight changes to the food adventures category. Instead of just blogging about suppers I’m going to post a series of pictures on how to make what I made and then post a link in the recipe section to that blog entry. So ideally the cooking entries should read like a recipe :)

Lionel and I are really trying to improve our eating habits. We picked up the book The World’s Healthiest Foods by George Mateljan as a guide and it’s FANTASTIC. He has done his research and has a lot of information on the biochemical properties of the food, and references nutrition journals. He’ll talk about ATP, reactive oxygen species, and enzymology, but in a way even someone not into the biosciences can understand. He selected foods that are not only nutrient dense (a lot of nutrients per calorie) but also affordable and available at many locations around the world. Each chapter tells you how to select and store the food, and great cooking methods which only take 5 to 7 minutes. Our cooking style was very similar to his to begin with, and we’ve kept some things he doesn’t recommend, heh, but the book has given us many useful ideas, especially when it comes to fresh produce and incorporating more vegetables into our diet.

In either case, I was so proud of the supper I made today that I had to blog about it :) I baked trout with fresh dill from our urban garden, butter, and lemon juice. I’ve done this a lot before but never with fresh herbs :) With that a made a chickpea salad with chickpeas, tomatoes, green onion, sunflower seeds, chopped pecans, and fresh cilantro and basil from the garden, seasoned with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

To go with it I made a sweet tossed salad to balance the savoury chickpeas. I used romaine lettuce, cucumber, dried cranberries, and dried blueberries with raspberry vinaigrette. Woo! And to top it off as a snack that day we had edamame, which is steamed soy beans in the pods with salt, a really good chip substitute and delicious too!

Two days before this Lionel made an AMAZING pasta salad. He lightly steamed some fresh broccoli and mixed it with whole wheat bowtie pasta, tomatoes, boiled egg, fresh basil, dried oregano, olive oil, salt, and pepper. WOW. Best broccoli EVER!!!

I’m so excited to do some more cooking soon :)