Here’s a quick and easy quinoa salad for all of your spring and summer picnics and barbecues, your weeknight dinners, and your lunchbox fillers. Jam-packed with a rainbow of bell peppers, carrots, leek (or scallion), dried cranberries, and fresh cilantro, and dressed with a few squirts of lime juice and some olive oil. Quinoa cooks very quickly, usually within 10 to 15 minutes. The rest of the salad is just chopping, squeezing, and tossing, and that’s about all I want to handle when the sun is shining here in New York City after such a long winter. 
Easy, delicious, healthy, and portable. A salad that pleases vegans, gluten free-gans, and vegetable lovers. Continue reading
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Cranberry and Cilantro Quinoa Salad
3 MayI made hummus and you should, too
10 Feb
I made hummus this weekend. Classic chickpea-tahini-lemon-garlic hummus. I even went so far as to soak dried chickpeas the night before and I took the outer skins off the chickpeas before blending. All of those extra little steps lead me to the most sublime, or as Deb Perelman says, ethereally smooth, hummus. Continue reading
David Lebovitz’s Crumble de Butternut + Roasted Green Cabbage
7 Feb
Are we sick of winter squash yet? Too bad, because thick-skinned roots, tubers and squash are here for the long haul.
Apparently I am fond of butternut squash bakes and crumbles, as evidenced by the Figs in My Belly archives. To that I say, never enough! Continue reading
Dark Chocolate, Pistachio and SMOKED SEA SALT Cookies ~*Recipe ReDux*~
22 Jan
Oh, what a pinch of salt can do for a dessert. A pinch of salt can enhance the flavor of chocolate, perk up a lemon curd and make a pie crust pop.
What about SMOKED SALT?! I recently acquired a shaker of smoked sea salt, and I think it has great potential in desserts, if used sparingly, mostly with chocolate or nuts (sorry lemon bars and lemon tarts, I do not think smoked sea salt is your friend). Imagine a light sprinkle of smoked sea salt atop an intense chocolate brownie, a milk chocolate pudding or a pecan pie. Woah.
This month’s Recipe ReDux challenge is all about turning up the heat with smoke and spiciness.
“From boldly flavored smoked salts to actual smoking techniques, subtly smoked food is on-trend. The same can be said for spice as we savor heat from harissa, sriracha and smoked paprika. Show us the healthy dish you’re heating up with smoke and/or spiciness.”
I figured that most of the Recipe ReDuxers would be coming up with savory creations, so I decided to keep things sweet and smokey over here. Continue reading
Butternut Squash Tahini Spread from Jerusalem: A Cookbook
15 Jan
On Tuesday I picked up my first ever Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box of produce from Corbin Hill Farm. Corbin Hill picks the produce based on what is in season, and all of the produce is grown in New York State using sustainable farming methods. There are options to add “extras” to the order, such as dairy, eggs, meat, bread, beans or extra fruit.
In my January box of produce, I received apples, butternut squash, cabbage, beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, shallots, sprouts, arugula and an enormous Macomber turnip.
While I like to go to the markets and pick out my own fruits and vegetables, I thought the CSA box would be a nice mini kitchen challenge.
First up: butternut squash. Continue reading
Figsinmybelly 