Meatless Monday: 8 Minute Corn Salad

Last week it was my mum's birthday. I have no idea how old she turned this year as she only let us put three candles on the cake.... Over the years I had run out of gift ideas so this year I decided taking the stress from cooking meals everyday off my mum for that one night was the best gift idea.

I'd set out a grand plan of roast chicken, pork belly, salads and vegetables in my head before my mum reminded me that she needed to take my siblings to piano classes at 6pm which left me only 2hrs to prepare everything!

I sent my mum off to get a massage to help her relax while I did some last minute ingredient shopping. I had this grill roasted corn salad in mind but Woolworths had run out of fresh corn that day (amongst a bunch of other things that I needed to make the birthday cake!) and I was running out of time! Instead I grabbed some canned corn and shortened my cooking time!  This salad is the result.

I managed to plate up this salad, beef, mushroom and onion stir fry, roast pumpkin and sweet potato and stir fry bok choy by dinner time. The chicken wasn't ready until an hour afterwards.... Everyone was starving so I didn't manage to take a picture of all the food but I did take a picture of this corn salad before it was gobbled up. Trust me it takes like 5 minutes! I only said 8 minutes to cover myself. And it's delicious. If there's any doubt I'm willing to hold live demos at my house where you can watch me whip it up in 5minutes then proceed to eat it and tell you it's delicious.

8 Minute Corn Salad
Adapted from: The Healthy Foodie 

Serves: 2-4
Preparation and cooking time: 5-8mins

Ingredients
  • 1 can of corn
  • 1/2 capsicum, chopped
  • 1 cupgreen beans cut into 1" (2cm) pieces
  • 1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
  • The juice of 1 lime
  • Fetta cheese, crumbled
  • ½ cup walnuts, chopped
  • 2 cups baby spinach and rocket
  • Salt and pepper to taste
Method
  1. Drain the can of corn
  2. Place corn, capsicum and green beans in a pan and stir fry for 2 minutes (You can skip this step too since it's not really necessary to cook these ingredients anyway
  3. Place all the ingredients in a bowl and toss before serving
Per serve (443g): Energy: 1787kJ (427kCal), Carbohydrates 66.5g, Fibre 11.2g, Fat 15.4g, Saturated fat 3.5g, Protein 16.8g, Sodium 532mg (These values are based on the original recipe from the link)

See easy right? This salad didn't store well overnight in the fridge (the beans went a bit brown) so eat it all up on the same day!



 

Isn't it so colourful? And I promise it's good for you ;)

Meatless Monday: Warm Quinoa, Potato and Orange Salad Recipe

I made this salad last night as part of dinner from bits and pieces I found in the fridge and pantry. It's not only vegetarian but vegan too!

Years ago, when I first started setting foot in a kitchen, I made mainly baked goods. To be more specific, those cake mixes you can buy at the supermarket. I started with these because I never had to worry about main meals (thanks mum!) and I thought they would be the easiest. Sadly I could not even make cake from the packet. I know......

Now I realise it's because I always over beat the batter and my mum would buy the cheapest cake mixes that always looked good when fresh out of the oven but were hard as a rock after a day. Come to think of it, I'm not sure why I didn't just give up then and step away from the oven!

I persisted and eventually I was starting to search up easy recipes online I could use. I stuck firmly to the recipes I had, believing that if I even turned the oven one degrees more than specified, my cakes would be ruined! Baked goods are unpredictable that way; they never look like the ingredients they started as. And that makes baking so magical to me. Nevertheless, I bought many ingredients I had to throw out in the end as I had no other use for them.

It took me YEARS to feel comfortable enough to start omitting and replacing ingredients in recipes! First it was with savoury dishes then with the sweets and now I'm finally feeling a little bit more comfortable writing up my own recipes. This is where this recipe came in. I'd only heard about quinoa a year or so ago and I hadn't made anything with quinoa in it for a while (despite my last post also being a quinoa recipe!) so I decided to make a salad. I had a browse online for some recipes and found most recipes had ingredients I did not have. I had no salad greens, no lemon, no meat. Yeh my fridge was quite barren..... The idea of a quinoa salad was already in my mind and I knew I could not let it go so I did what I could with what little I had. And it turned out great!

Maybe you've never heard of quinoa, maybe you're ready to try your first quinoa recipe or maybe you've made quinoa a million times. Whatever your quinoa knowledge may be, go look in the fridge and pantry and put whatever looks good in this salad with some quinoa. The more colourful and vibrant it is the better!         

For those that still want a recipe as a guideline continue reading =)

Warm Quinoa, Potato and Orange Salad 
 
Serves: 2 large serves
Preparation and Cooking Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

Salad
1 cup quinoa
3 cups water or stock
Half a medium sweet potato
1 medium sized potato
1 small carrot
1/2 cup chickpeas
1 1/2 tablespoons sun dried tomatoes
Half a small avocado
Half an orange

Dressing
2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar
1/2 tablespoon oil from sundried tomatoes
1/2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

Method
1. Pre-heat oven to 170degrees celcius
2. Dice up sweet potato, potato and carrot and place them on a baking tray with foil. Give them a light spray with olive oil and some salt and pepper to taste. Put in the oven for 10-15mins or until light brown
3. Place 1 cup of quinoa in 3 cups of stock/water in a saucepan (I used vegetable stock as it gives the quinoa more flavour. Quinoa is very good at soaking up the flavour of stock!) Bring it to the boil then lower the heat so it just simmers for 15minutes or until the quinoa turns opaque and splits. Look at the picture. Most if not all the water should be absorbed. I don't think you can overcook quinoa anyway.... 
4. Dice half an avocado
5. Cut an orange in half and peel half then dice into segments. Cut the other half of the orange into segments and eat while waiting for the quinoa and roast veg to be ready!
6. Once the quinoa and vegetables are ready place them on a plate. Add the chickpeas, sundried tomatoes, avocado and orange.
7. Place the vinegar and oil in the salad and lightly toss the salad with a spoon. (You could toss in a bowl then place on a plate but I'm lazy and less washing up!) If you used stock for the quinoa there's not much need to add salt but flavour with salt and pepper as desired. 
8. Eat slowly. It's delicious, I promise!

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The information presented on this blog acts as general nutrition advice and is not tailored to meet individual needs. It should not be used as a replacement for any medical advice you have recieved from medical practitioners. Please discuss any concerns for your health with your doctor or Accredited Practicing Dietitian before starting a new dietary or exercise regime as they can give more personalised recommendations.

I make every effort to ensure information on Nutrition with Wendy is correct and up to date however nutrition is an evolving field and discrepancies can arise. If the information here appears incorrect or out of date please let me know and I will do my best to update my posts.