Monday, June 2, 2008

Not-entirely-local, but low-on-the-food-chain lunch

(Nice red tray, huh?)
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This is another variation on my favorite Greek lentil soup recipe. What I love most about this thin-bodied lentil soup is that it can take so much variation. Today, it has potherbs from the garden (i.e., mustards and greens that are a bit overgrown and ready to bolt from the heat, so I cooked them into the soup to staunch their sharpness), some baby bok choi from the farmer's market, and a big dollop of quinoa pilaf in the middle.
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I'm a recent convert to quinoa; I had it before (years ago), but I never liked it much until I tried it as a cold pilaf when I was in an Oregon restaurant a few weeks ago. It's a *very* delicious partner with this soup. When lemons are more seasonal, a splash of lemon juice would certainly be a fine addition to this dish.
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The quinoa was rinsed very well (it has a bitter coating- rinse it several times) and cooked for 20 minutes. Then I put a half-cup of it into a bowl and added a pre-sauteed onion, a generous sprinkling of celtic salt, a dash of cider vinegar, a dash of cayanne, a dash of tamari, and some more olive oil as a top drizzle once it was added to the soup. It was pretty amazing. This will be my lunch for the week.

5 comments:

RG said...

A well presented lunch!

I got to get back to the AP show a bit later before commenting ... it's too early here in the House of Rabbits to be playing audio!

But the video is amazing! Does the landlord know about this???

ilex said...

Since our landlord is a company and not a person, I highly doubt it. But I'm going to send it to my condo association president, who is himself a total foodie; he's also manager of Detroit's Farmers Market. I'll let him make that call as to whether to send it to someone in the building management group.

d. moll, l.ac. said...

You can also soak Quinoa over night with anything a little acidic like lemon juice, or raw vinigar, or kefir or yogurt. OVer night soaking removes the sapponins and Phytic acid, which if not unbound form the grain can mess with mineral absorption. Rinse well, of course. Your lunch looks YUMMY.

ilex said...

Wow, that's a great tip on quinoa! I've not come across that in any cookbook yet. Since I'm doing this also for nutrition, *anytime* you want to chime in, I'm totally all ears!

d. moll, l.ac. said...

Good place to start is "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. I also like "Real Food" by Nina Planck, though that's not really a cookbook. Bon Appetite!