Superfood Salad. Better than you think.
This past Sunday, as Martine loaded the last of her things into a taxi and headed to the airport, two thoughts hit me simultaneously. One, Time flies. Didn’t she just get here? Two, I hope she has a good liver doctor in San Francisco. Maybe it is just seeing things through pregnant-person eyes but there is some hard partying that goes on in the Big Easy and although I will not go into the detail of the weekend, suffice it to say Martine did not get the arms she’s got by spending every weekend like she spent this last one in New Orleans.
But, really, she inspired me to try my hand at a little detox-superfood remedy. On her behalf. I’ve been collecting boxes of Quinoa at the rate of about one every three months when I go to the grocery store and think, “Hmmmm, I should try Quinoa in something” then I stick it in the pantry and forget about it until three months go by, and I am looking for a home for the new box of Quinoa I just liberated from the grocery store. It’s an ugly pattern.
This time I wasn’t giving up. With my Gwyneth books tucked an ocean away in London and just me at the refrigerator, I had nothing to fall back on. I put the Quinoa on to cook and then opened the refrigerator. For once, when I looked inside, instead of seeing a ton of items that screamed, “Ah, screw it, just make a PB&J“, I saw potential. I saw tomatoes delivered from Good Eggs. I saw Feta left over from Black Bean Tacos. I saw Greens. I saw Pomegranate seeds. And it all came together in, honestly, the MOST delicious salad I have ever had. Even my rugby-playing-bubble-and-squeak-loving husband loved it. He went back for seconds. OF A SALAD, PEOPLE!
The real beauty of this recipe, if you can even call it a recipe, is that it allows for enough variation that I can make a few more versions for the cookbook. It has been two months since I have written a single recipe for the book, and I know that as long as I have a double digit to-do list for belleannee.com I will keep putting off recipe writing for the book. The problem is that it is way more fun to share as I go instead of testing, documenting and writing … then shelving the result for two years. Good thing we don’t have a publisher breathing down our necks. (Future publisher: We promise to hit every deadline!).
So anyway, use this as a base, especially for great ways to make use of leftovers around the holiday season. Roasted root vegetables are a great addition to an otherwise very light salad. The Pomegranate Molasses Vinaigrette would be wonderful on any salad that mixes up bitter greens, rich roasted vegetables and creamy cheeses.
- 1 handful of salad greens (I prefer mixed leaves)
- 1/3 cup (60 g) cooked Quinoa
- 1 tablespoon Feta
- 1 tablespoon chopped tomato
- 1/4 cup sliced avocado
- 1/4 cup roasted and diced sweet potato (can be either hot or cold)
- 1 tablespoon pomegranate seeds
- (recipe makes a little less than 1 cup)
- 6 oz (175ml) olive oil
- 1 tablespoon (15ml) pomegranate molasses
- 1 tablespoon (15ml) lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon (10g) dijon mustard
- salt
- pepper
- Put all ingredients into a blender and blend, baby, blend!
- Start with a plate or shallow bowl and layer ingredients. First, add mixed leaves and top with Quinoa. Then add Feta, tomato, avocado, sweet potato and pomegranate seeds as the final thing.
- Drizzle with pomegranate molasses vinaigrette.
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