It’s partly time and partly due to all my creative energy
being pumped into work, which is not a bad thing. It’s a new industry for
me, so lots to learn. In the evenings I find myself trawling TechCruch, Access
Control and Biometrics related articles, and learning terms of software that I
thought were animals that belonged in the zoo. I also tend to over analyse…Every.
Single. Punctuation. Mark. And. Pronoun. I miss writing without reins. Which
brings me back here. There is a certain freedom to a blog that I love. No editors,
no big cheeses and no engineers. It’s your space. Your blog. Your opinion. So
everyone else can suck it or start their own blog. But let’s not get side
tracked and focus on the food.
It’s not that I haven’t been cooking, I have, but
mostly high protein dishes as I am doing a 12-week challenge called ‘GetFit’. While
doing the challenge I’ve learnt that I am a ‘Cardio and Cupcakes Kinda Gal’. I
love exercise but I equally love carbs. I toyed with doing a series of high protein
dishes, but my blog will always be a home for good food and this will certainly
entail carbs. But in saying that, I have had some fun with new and forgotten
foods. Enter Quinoa (pronounced ‘kee-n-wa’), my forgotten friend. Once a
massively popular food a few years back, but as food falls in and out of
fashion, I had forgotten about it until a friend reminded me of its high protein
benefits. Actually a seed rather than a cereal, this South American gem is also
gluten-free and easy to digest. The
Incas have known of its benefits for thousands of years and regarded it as the
'mother grain' as they grew it high up in the Andes. Clever people those Incas.
So a quick, easy
and delicious salad which is little labour for maximum flavour! 
Smoked Chicken, Strawberries
and Feta Salad
Ingredients:
1 cup
uncooked quinoa 2 cups water
1/2 cup lemon, squeezed
1/4 cup (about 10) strawberries quartered
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup cucumber, peeled and diced
1 smoked chicken breast
1/3 cup crumbled feta
A Large handful of lettuce
Salt and fresh pepper, to taste
Rinse quinoa
for about 2 minutes, make sure it is well rinsed.
Fill a
medium pot with water, add quinoa and salt to taste and bring to a boil. When
the water boils, reduce heat to low and cover; simmer covered 15 minutes.
Remove from heat and keep covered an additional 5 minutes without lifting the
lid; then fluff with a fork and set aside in a large mixing bowl to cool.
While the
quinoa cools, dice the strawberries and cucumber. Add to the cooled quinoa, and
squeeze 1/2 lemon over it.
Plate the
lettuce and heap quinoa onto it. Drizzle the olive oil over the quinoa, then
add feta, salt and pepper to taste and toss well. Taste for salt and adjust as
needed.
I managed to take a snap, no styling sadly. Next time for sure!
Serves 2
