Cool As A Cucumber Salad
I've recently become obsessed with cucumbers and I promise if you give this salad a chance you will too.
Salad
3 large cucumbers, peeled, seeded
1 large carrot
½ red bell pepper, minced
½ white onion
Dressing
3 to 4 tablespoons raw, organic apple cider vinegar and Celtic sea salt
Method:
1) Cut cucumbers lengthwise and then into thin half-moons.
2) Cut onion into fine strips.
3) Use a peeler to make fine strips of the carrot.
4) Toss cucumbers, carrots, bell pepper and onions in a bowl. Sprinkle with sea salt and set aside for 10 minutes.
5) Sprinkle with vinegar and chill for 2 to 4 hours. Toss and serve.
Stuffed Peppers
Ingredients: (Makes 6 servings)
2 cups cooked quinoa
1 - 2 Tbsp. organic, unrefined coconut oil, ghee or butter
1 medium onion, chopped fine
1 tsp. sea salt or to taste
3/4 tsp. pepper
2 Tbsp. dried sweet basil
2 Tbsp. paprika
4-6 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 stalks celery, chopped fine
1 lb. greens such as kale, parboiled 5 minutes, chopped
6 red peppers, seeded and parboiled 5 minutes
Method:
1) Sauté onion in oil or ghee with seasonings until translucent.
2) Add garlic, celery, and kale, cook until tender.
3) Blend with cooked grains.
4) Taste mixture and adjust seasonings.
5) Stuff red peppers with quinoa mixture.
6) Bake at 350 degrees in oiled casserole for 45 minutes.
Pizza Crust/Pita Crackers/Flat Bread
This is one of my favorites!! I love loading toppings onto the pizza crust, it's the best.
Ingredients:
1 standard size bag of quinoa (has to soak for 8 hours!)
A bunch of herbs that you like in pizza crust, for example, crushed rosemary, powdered garlic, onion salt, sea salt, oregano, basil.
Olive oil to Grease iron skillet
Cast iron skillet (if you are like me, you need to know about this ahead of time because you may not own one... Can be purchased at Walmart
)
Method:
1) Soak it!...Put your quinoa in a large bowl and cover with water by 2 inches, and put saran wrap or tinfoil on it for at least eight hours. (You can also put in fridge overnight while soaking)
2) After quinoa has been soaked, strain it using a mesh strainer, and gather it into a bowl.
3) Now, put on some plastic gloves… And add in all of your herbs and salts etc that I mentioned above. (This is a very subjective process, but I have found the onion salt and crushed rosemary to be very important)
4) Use your gloved hands to mix the quinoa/herb mixture all around.
5) Put mixture in blender, and blend until it turns into almost a pancake mixture. (Could take about five or six minutes and you may need to stop it just to push it around with a knife if anything is stuck at the top.)
Cooking instructions:
1) Oven (and skillet!) are preheated to 375
2) Pour a Little olive oil in the pan to cover the bottom.
3) Take about a quarter cup to half cup of the dough (for a 12 inch skillet) and spoon it in the center of skillet.
4) To spread the dough-- take a piece of parchment paper and spray one side of it with cooking spray, then lay this over the glop and use your hands on top of the parchment paper to spread out all the dough into a nice thin layer.
5) Slowly peel away your parchment paper which shouldn't stick since you used the cooking oil on it. (You will play around here as I like the dough very thin and it ends up tasting like hard pita chip crust where as my older daughter likes it thicker so that it tastes more like a bread or pizza crust.)
6) Now, you put the iron skillet in the oven and cook for 15 minutes, then use a spatula to easily pick up to flip over.
Before you flip the pizza back in the pan --add a little more olive oil, (this seems to be important.)
7) Cook on the second side for five minutes.