Recipe of the week: Quinoa salad with pear, avocado and blue cheese

I continued my experiments with quinoa with an exquisite salad which combines different tastes. It has enough energy to keep you strong during the day or to finish your evening. If you have all the different ingredients, in less than 30 minutes - most precisely 25 minutes - it is ready. You can prepare it and store in the fridge for a couple of hours. Served cold is a very refreshing snack during the hot days of summer - not the German summer anyway.

Ingredients

100 gr. quinoa

200 ml. water

50 gr. butter

1/2 teaspoon salt

10 walnuts cut into little pieces

2 pears peeled and cut into little pieces

1/2 tablespoon olive oil

1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

100 gr. blue cheese

1 ripe avocado, medium size, cut into little cubes

Directions

Boil the water. Add the salt and the butter. Clean and add the quinoa and let boil for another 5 minutes.

Add the cheese when the quinoa is still warm, it will melt nicely.

Add the olive and lemon juice and mix.

Add the walnuts, pears, avocado and mix well.

Let it rest for a couple of minutes.

If this pleasant mixtures of tastes it is not enough for you, add also some cherry tomatoes. 

Bon Appetit!

How to tell if avocado is ripe

For years, this is one of my biggest problems in choosing avocado: how can I know how ripe is without touching or even smelling it. Apparently, it was easier than expected, and thanks to the Internet and social media, even a clumsy person as me can recognize the right avocado. 

Source: https://www.facebook.com/ecolutionist

Fresh salad for the busy days

What could compare with a good and fresh salad in the morning.

But often, the morning is the worse time of the day to prepare something and often, if we are working a bit late in the evening, we can prepare in maximum 15 minutes a good salad with a lot of vitamins and refreshing 

tastes  that will wait for us in the fridge whatever early in the morning we will head to our office. 

The following salad is something you need for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I cannot have enough of it and I am happy to have it on my menu at least once the week.

I used the following ingredients:

- corn

- avocado

- tomatoes

- parmesan

- same salt

- olive oil

An amazing result will follow!

Bon appetit!

My new brand salad with almost everything

What upon an afternoon, I was so full of imagination, that I added in this salad almost everything available in my basket of vegetables: 

Greek cheese, creatively chopped

Rucola

Olives

Avocado

Tomatoes

Champignons

Salt

Avocado oil

Corn

Mixed together little by little - with the hands - all the components are easily learning to live together. For the moment, the salad is impatiently waiting in the refrigerator the swalling moment. 

Bon Appetit!

A fresh salad for a new beginning

This wonderfully green-looking salad was part of the never ending menu prepared for Rosh Hashanah.

The ingredients:
lettuce
avocado - half, finelly chopped
pomegranate seeds - 1/4
olive oil
1 table spoon of honey
Mixed them all together and serve them as often as possible. The final taste is delicious.

Sweet avocado with lemon and sugar

I found the inspiration for this sweet avocado recipe from the South-African Cooking Book. The result was a bit different, and not exclusively a success, but I am not always hunted by the success of the (perfect) beginner.

What do you need to feed 2 (not always very sophisticated, but always curious) people:

2 medium avocados, sliced and minced in the mixer

1/2 lemon juice

200 gr. sugar - brown or white

You could add some avocado honey, if you are lucky enough to own.

Preparation time: 20-25 minutes

Mix all the ingredients together, and serve it cold or at the room temperature. 

Smoked tofu with tomatoes, garlic, sour cream and avocado

Did you miss my avocado recommendations? Well, be ready for more than one recipe. 

Let's start with the sour part:

To the wonderful recipe of smoked tofu with tomatoes and garlic, from the Vegetarian Tofu Recipes book, please be so kind and add a big avocado sliced and some 250 gr. sour cream, or yogurt. Maybe also some salt.

And, that's all!

Moroccan carrot salad

From time to time, I simply fell in love with some recipes and/or ingredients. The taste effect is so strong that I can't live without. One of my long lasting relationship is with avocado: I use it all the time, as often as possible. Recently, I refreshed my reserves of avocado honey.

The latest entry is the Maroccan salad, I picked up the last week, from the same Cohen's book. Since, I did it again this Wednesday and again today. 

My adapted variant is:

4 - or more, up to the number of guests - carrots, finely gratted

1 bunch of fresh parsley

30 gr. sesame seeds

100 gr. canola oil

1 spoon of salt

1 spoon of sugar

1 spoon of lemon juice

The carrots, the oil, the salt, the sasame, the sugar and the lemon juice, are heated together for 10-15 minutes, carefully mixed. At the end, you add the parsley leaves and you can serve it!

For me, the gratted part of the story was the most demanding one, as I need, probably, more exercises at the gym!

Avocado-Pomegranate Salat

I am not following too many recipes, but for the sake of diversification and given my limited experience in the issues of cooking, I need to use some books.

I have already four big colourful ones in my library, a very modest presence, in comparison with the volume of my books.

But, I have Internet, so no worries about my bibliography and actually, I prefer the virtual option, as I can find useful video posts - maybe one day I will try to do it too.

The following recipe is adapted from Elizabeth Wolf Cohen's Jüdische Küche. 100 authentische Rezepte.

What do you need is:

1 pomegranate

2 oranges

2 avocados

10 fresh mint leaves

Cayenne pepper, on taste

1 spoon of honey

25 gr. of salt

Prepare the orange juice and mix together with salt, pepper, the salt and the honey.

Remove the seeds of the pomegranate, peel the avocado and slice it.

Pour the orange mixture and wait another 10 minutes.

The total amount of time is maximum 25 minutes.

I served together with some fish recipes, fighting hard the temptation to eat it as a separate meal. A lovely and unique taste, worthy to taste it!

The rice recommendation of the week

For almost one year, many time ago, I ate rice almost daily. Remembering these times, I tried myself various imaginary receipes. 

Here is the most recent:

Boiled rice

1 avocado

chopped garlic, to taste

1 zucchini, chopped and fried in the pan with olive oil

salt, to taste taste

The boiled rice, plus avocado, garlic and fried zucchini are fried together in the pan, for maximum 10 minutes. To be served separately or together with other meals or salads.

Enjoy your meal and have a happy eating week!

My funny tomatoes

One of my culinary memories of my childhood is of the tomatoes filled with cheese cream. After many friendly images coming back from the old times, I dared one day to prepare my own variant. To the old receipe I added avocado and dill. Maybe the pictures are not attractive enough, but believe me, they tasted wonderfully. 

The successful formula:

For the tomatoes: get rid of the seeds and clean it carefully. Actually, even for the salads or sandwiches, I am still cleaning the the seeds. 

For the cheesy cream: 

100 gr. cheese cream

1 bound of dill - chopped finely

salt, to taste

Mix the cheese, the dill and salt for 5 minutes. 

1 avocado - sliced and chopped

Fill the tomatoes, add the avocado and let wait for another 10 minutes before serving.