Abby and I decided that we needed to branch out from our personal cooking ruts.
I mean … as good as Abby’s taquitos are … and they are THAT good … how many times a week can you eat them?.
And we’ve been excited to realize how many real food bloggers there are (like The Nourishing Gourmet, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, This Chick Cooks, 100 Days of Real Food, to name just a few).
So we’ve decided to challenge ourselves … and the real food recipes we’ve been adding to our personal interest pages.
We’ll be calling it “taste test”, and here’s how it works … we find a real food recipe that looks promising. Make it (with or without modification … we’ll tell you if we make changes). Feed our family. Take a poll (or just see if the littles will eat it and/or want seconds) and tell you how it goes.
And for our first adventure … Lime-Cilantro Quinoa Salad from 100 Days of Real Food
I had a family dinner on Friday that required me to bring a vegetarian salad … one that could be substantial enough for the veggies in attendance to feel like they had a real meal, and light enough for the omnivores who wanted a tasty side dish for their burgers and steak.
The basic ingredients for the salad:
- Quinoa – superfood, high protein, totally substantial and nutritious. (I used organic tricolor quinoa instead of the white that Lisa used.)
- Dried fruit (I used un-sulfered apricots and dried cranberries)
- Pine nuts – for an added crunch
- Cilantro
- Bell Pepper (I used a red one and a yellow one because I find the green ones a little over-powering … also I doubled the bell pepper because I doubled the recipe, since I was feeding 14 people)
For the dressing Lisa used a combination of:
- lime juice
- olive oil
- Dijon mustard
- garlic
- salt
I cut back on the amount of dressing because, well, it just seemed a little excessive for my taste. But I gotta tell you … SUCCESS!!! It was a HUGE hit!
The vegetarians LOVED that it was substantial and tasty. The omnivores went back for seconds. And the kiddos were excited to find little bits of dried fruit … it was like a treasure hunt for them. I will definitely make this again and again.