Quinoa Fruit Salad with Honey Ginger Dressing

My Dearest Jean,

So here we go with post number two! 

I'm enjoying exposing Dave to new foods, and one of those news foods has been quinoa. I've made it for him a few different ways so far; curried quinoa, quinoa with sweet potatoes, quinoa with black beans, corn and avocado. Since i just got some tricolored quinoa, I wanted to make something to showcase all those colors, as well as something that i hadn't made for him before.

Well whats more colorful than fruit!!!!

So that was that, and I decided on a quinoa fruit salad dressed with a honey, ginger, and lime dressing! Are you drooling yet? For the fruit, you can really pick whatever you want. I used a little of everything we had in the house. Strawberries, peaches, green apples, and blueberries.

While I was dicing, I remembered about the sweet corn that we had just picked up and thought what a wonderful addition this would be!! Now when I say sweet corn, I mean sweet summer corn. The kind that you can eat raw and it tastes like candy! I never knew this awesomeness until about a 9 months ago when my friend Jessica, her baby girl, and I were strolling through the Hillcrest Farmer's Market and one of the farmers there handed us a half an ear of corn and told us to try it. We both looked at each other, and I told her to go first. In my head, all I was imagining was that bitterness of uncooked corn. I was hesitant. But I trust her tastebuds, and she assured me that it was good. I bit in... and my goodness. I was in love. We both bought some and if I remember correctly, both our stashes were gone by the next day. I went back and bought more and would even pack them in Bowie's lunches. He loved them as well. Then a few weeks later, they were gone!! Sweet corn season was over. How cold this be? I'd only just acquired the knowledge of its raw delicious crispness and I was told I'd have to wait til the following May for more. It was a rough year of waiting for sweet corn season again. No, wait, that's not right. It was rough waiting for Dave to get home from deployment. It was torture waiting for sweet corn season. It just so happens both things were happening in May. Ha. I digress. The point of the above tangent, if you don't have access to the type of sweet corn that I am referring to, don't bother. 

Back to the recipe. Prepare your quinoa according to directions. Which are almost always 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa. For today's adventure, I just did half a cup of quinoa since it was just gonna be Dave and I eating it. While the quinoa was cooking, I prepared the dressing.

Simple, but creates quite a complex flavor. Honey, lime, and some fresh grated ginger. Note, the recipe below has my starting measures. I did tinker with it a little bit to get it EXACTLY how I wanted it. Use caution with the ginger, it really brings out the citrus of the lime, so I added more honey as I wanted that to be a forefront tone for the palette as far as the dressing was concerned. 

Oh and if you don't have one of these lime squeezer do-hickeys... get one! Dave brought me it home one day from the store when I was making a key lime pie.

So after the dressing is done, mix it into the quinoa until coated. Then add the fruit in.

Stir.

And, viola. Oh and as if thats not the tasty enough, I got crazy and did THIS:

Added Point Reyes blue cheese on top!! That is a whole lotta flavor explosion right there!!

QUINOA FRUIT SALAD

1/2 Cup quinoa

1 Cup water

1 1/2 Cups strawberries

1 1/2 Peaches

1 Granny smith apple

1/2 An ear of sweet corn raw (see note above)

Boil water (add salt if desired)

Add quinoa. Cover and lower heat. Cook for 10-15 minutes. Until water is absorbed.

Let quinoa cool to room temperature.

In the meantime, cut fruit and prepare dressing.

HONEY GINGER LIME DRESSING

Juice from one lime

3-4 Tbls honey

1/4 tsp freshly grated ginger

Combine. 

Once quinoa cools, add dressing, then add fruit and toss. That's all. 

We had this with some turkey burgers that Dave threw on the grill. Very good!

Oh and you might notice that the recipe only states that I used 1 1/2 peaches. Curious what I did with the other half of the peach?

I gave Mr. P his first taste of sweet sweet peaches! Cuz what kind of southern boy would I be raising if he didn't like peaches?!

Til Next Time,

Geneva

Ello Lemonie Puppy!!

Hey There Jean!

Things are getting pretty settled around here since Dave's been home. Just been cooking and baking and traveling around while he's got some time off work, and I thought, hey let's make this blog thing happen. So here is my attempt to finish what we started. Errr, rather, START what we started! 

Summer's been quite a new concept for me now that I'm living in Texas! Summer here means planning your day around being inside and hiding from the triple digit weather. It means starting the car 15 minutes before you wanna leave the house so that the a/c cools the car enough to put the baby in. It means figuring out ways to not feel like a hermit when you look outside and it *looks* inviting and nice but really it just wants to lure you out and suck the sweat from your soul! Ha.

To me, this means cooking like it's summer (a San Diego summer, not a central Texas summer). A summer where friends are picnicking and BBQing. What better summer dessert to bring to these imaginary parties than lemon 'brownies' or Lemonies as Rita's Recipes so dubbed them! I got this recipe from Meriel. She made them awhile back and they looked so delish, plus the hubs enjoys him some lemon flavored treats! So I made, we ate devoured, we fell in love. The taste was more intense than say, a lemon pound cake. And the consistency is definitely more like that of a brownie. In natural me fashion though, I couldn't stick to the entire recipe verbatim. I had to have some part that was ME. Something that I could say was my addition, subtraction, complement, correction, etc. You get the idea. So for this, I swapped out the lemon glaze for a lemon blueberry sauce. It's the little things that make me feel creative. Ha!

The ingredients are as simple as can be: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, a little salt, and of course lemon!!

Mix sugar, flour, and salt with room temperature butter in a medium-large bowl.

Oh hey look.. there's my little sous chef! He's ready to combine the eggs with the lemon juice and zest in a smaller bowl! He really does enjoy watching momma cook and bake.

Then mix mix mix.... are you surprised at all that my hand mixer is orange?

Spread in greased or buttered...mmmm buttered... 8x8 pan, and place in a preheated 350º oven.

Ta-da. These we great. They've got a slightly buttery taste that compliments the lemony goodness! Meriel did give me the warning that a little lemon goes a long way..... so I made sure to adhere to the 1Tbls of lemon juice, and it was perfect! 

Viola! Now then next time I make these, I won't put the sauce on top until serving. It's just not that pretty seeing as it doesn't actually 'glaze' over but rather seeps into the brownies. Not a bad thing, still taste amazing. I just think I'd keep the sauce separate until serving, and then cut and drizzle. Oh and the addition of the fresh blueberries when serving, just made it that much more dynamic.

  

And there you have it!!

LEMONIES

3/4 C flour

3/4 C sugar

1/4 t salt

1/2 cup (one stick) room temperature butter

2 eggs

1 Tbls fresh lemon juice (half of a large lemon)

zest from 1/2 lemon

Preheat oven to 350º

 In the larger of two mixing bowls, mix together flour, sugar, and salt with the room temp butter.

In smaller bowl which the eggs with the lemon juice and lemon zest.

Add lemon-egg mixture to larger bowl and mix until thoroughly combined. 

Pour mixture into a greased or buttered 8x8 brownie or cake pan.

Bake for about 25 minutes.

Let cool completely.

LEMON BLUEBERRY SAUCE

1 Tbls lemon juice (now you've got use for that other half!)

1/2 cup confectioners (powdered) sugar

1/2 Tbls hot water (help break down the powdered sugar)

7-8 fresh blueberries mashed

Add the lemon juice, hot water, and confectioners juice and whisk. When all the sugar has dissolved into the liquids, and in the mashed blueberries.

(i thought about adding cornstarch to thicken the sauce but opted not to... feel free though depending on how your sauce/glaze turns out)

I hope you enjoy making, but mostly eating these. and I sincerely hope that you have a better time beating New York heat than I have hiding from the Texas sun!!

Cheers,

Geneva