Quinoa and Poached Egg Salad

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One of things that I make sure that I keep well stocked in my pantry is quinoa: red and white to be precise. On lazy weekend mornings, I often fail to plan to have a good loaf of bread available. So, with a well-stocked pantry, I can come up with something else good and hearty; best of all, it’s healthier!

With a few steps into the garden, I created this always perfect, cozy breakfast. Oh, I’m so in awe of these little arugula and spinach leaves that have been doing so much on our plates everyday. Now that they are about to end their season, this dish became a great homage to these little but powerful garden gems. I also used baby beets that had to be thinned. Can’t wait for summer vegetables to come!

If you thought from the photos that we were having a gorgeous sunny morning, ha, I managed to trick you with the artificial light. It was actually so extremely dark and crazily pouring rain outside that I had to turn the fireplace on, LOL!

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Quinoa and Poached Egg Salad

I used what’s growing in my garden, but any salad leaves should work. Feel free to experiment with it. As for the cheese, I had only the goat variety, but would’ve loved to use something stronger, like good quality cheddar. For best results, make sure you toast the sunflower seeds. Don’t skimp on this step because it completes this dish nicely. If you don’t know how to poach eggs, I found a dedicated article here.

Serves 3 to 4

1 cup quinoa (red, white or a mixture of both, like I did in this recipe)

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons butter

Lots of mushrooms, sliced

2 scallions, roughly chopped

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3 cup mixture of baby spinach, beets and arugula leaves, rinsed and drained well

2/3 cup goat cheese, crumbled

2/3 cup or more sunflower seeds, lightly toasted

Poached eggs; use desired amount

Rinse the quinoa under running water while rubbing it together in a sieve.

Place the quinoa in a small saucepan or pot with the stock and salt, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover the pan and simmer until the stock is no longer visible, for about 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand for 5 minutes.

In the meantime, sauté the mushrooms and scallions with the butter in a small pan over medium high heat until softened. Adjust with salt and pepper.

Combine the quinoa and the mushroom mixture in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Poach eggs and set aside. When eggs are ready, add the salad leaves, goat cheese and sunflower seeds to the quinoa mixture and stir to combine. In this way, baby greens will wilt nicely but not overly.

Serve the quinoa in individual bowls and top with the poached eggs. Sprinkle with freshly ground pepper.

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Beet & Chocolate Muffins

beet & chocolate muffins

Whether or not you are a beet lover, if you are looking for the way to someone’s heart, try these red muffins. They are fun to make, and even better the naturally intense colour of these muffins makes them an attractive as well as nutritious treat!

beet & chocolate muffins

The idea of perfecting this recipe came after I gently nagged a local chocolatier, my farmer’s market friend, demanding that he create beet flavoured chocolate to accompany their unique kale, tomato and other vegetable flavours. He explained that any additional flavouring added to chocolate making has to be strong and distinctive enough to overcome the taste of chocolate.

cooked beets

Since it didn’t seem like the chocolatier was inclined to try this experiment, I decided to create my own concoction. Since beet has an earthy, subtle taste, after a couple of trials with grape seed oil and/or brown sugar and/or whole wheat, I have settled on a mixture of butter, cane sugar and white flour that gingerly brings out the earthy flavour of the beet. A chocolate piece is then inserted inside the muffins, and the slightly roasted coconut flakes placed over top helps create the perfect match in your watering mouth. The dream team of my imagination finally came true!

beet & chocolate muffins

beet & chocolate muffins

Beet & Chocolate Muffins

Makes 8 muffins

1 cup cooked beets (about 3 large beets), cooled and finely shredded

100g butter, room temperature

140g cane sugar (fine texture)

2 eggs, room temperature, slightly beaten

200g unbleached white flour

¼ teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons milk, room temperature

8 pieces of dark chocolate

Shredded coconut flakes

Preheat the oven to 350F. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.

Cream the butter in a large bowl and add the sugar in a couple of instalments. Continue to stir until pale and fluffy.

Add the eggs 1 at a time and continue to stir until combined. Add the beets and mix well.

Add half the amount of flour mixture and stir until mixed, then add the rest and gently fold with a spatula in a circular motion. Do not stir too much.

Divide the batter into prepared muffin cups in a tin. Insert one piece of chocolate inside each muffin. Sprinkle with coconut flakes on top. Bake until done, about 25 minutes.

Transfer the muffins to a rack and let cool.

 

Pumpkin Doughnuts

pumpkin doughnuts

I was inspired when I saw this recipe by Crispy Bits and Burnt Ends on Noshing with the Nolands. I had just been looking for a way to rescue our badly bruised and scratched pumpkin after rolling it on a steep gravel road at a local pumpkin (technically winter squash) rolling contest. We didn’t win the prize but were amazed how fast, straight and far it rolled from the shoot!

pumpkin doughnuts

I have been collecting seeds from pumpkins I have grown over the last three years, and now some of my pumpkins have started becoming somewhat strange looking and less sweet to taste. If you have a goal to save seeds, don’t be greedy like me planting kabocha, Uchiki red kuri, Marina Di Chioggia and so on in one garden. I would recommend that you grow one cultivar or type from each species so as to prevent them from cross-pollinating, which ends up producing seeds whose traits are unknown to us.  A good idea would be to pick one cultivar “Marina Di Chioggia” from Cucurbita maxima, delicata from Cucurbita pepo and butternut squash from Cucurbita moschata; that way you will be able to harvest pure seeds to grow during the next season. If you have planted mish mash this summer, then the seeds from those fruits are not suited for saving but make great snacks when roasted with spices!

pumpkin doughnuts and coffee

Thankfully, I received inspiration in the nick of time and decided to turn my glorious leftover pumpkin (the one from the pure seed back, not from the abovementioned Frankenseeds) into doughnuts. We had these doughnuts in the darkness of evening after coming back from a long, soggy walk with our two dogs. They didn’t seem to like this much rain. Since it was Halloween night, we saw groups of poor kids out and about in costumes hidden under their raincoats. As we reached home and dried off, we were looking forward to welcoming the next morning, rain or shine, because we knew that the rest of doughnuts were awaiting us for breakfast. It would be a nice way to start another otherwise miserable rainy day.

pumpkin doughnuts and coffee

As a side note, besides beating the autumn rain blues with the power of delicious doughnuts, I have also picked up some beautiful handspun linen from Heather Ross; I absolutely love its colour and cloud-like texture that suddenly brought some much-needed sunshine to my soul and to our table. What is your pick-me-up for your soul on wet, cold, dark, gray, rainy days?

pumpkin from the garden on hand spun linen from Heather Ross

Pumpkin Doughnuts

My grandma, my twin sister and I used to make shredded carrot and parsley doughnuts together in her kitchen as part of my grandma’s effort to introduce us to vegetables at a very young age. This time, I used a homegrown pumpkin and froze the rest in a single portion for soup, lasagne, croquettes, bread, buns, dog cookies and so forth.

Yields about 2 ½ dozen with a 2.5 inch doughnut cutter

1 pumpkin or winter squash to extract ¾ cup puree

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup whole wheat flour

2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon cardamom

2 tablespoons butter, softened

½ cup white sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup milk, room temperature

Grape seed or canola oil

Extra sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350F. Cut a pumpkin in half, discard the seeds and roast on a baking sheet until soft, about 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool and spoon out the meat. Puree when the pumpkin is completely cooled.

Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and spices all together.

Cream the butter and add sugar gradually until fluffy. Add the egg and combine well. Add vanilla, milk and pumpkin and stir until incorporated. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture.

Heat the oil over medium low heat to reach 370F. The oil’s height should be around 1 ½ inches in a deep skillet. In the meantime, roll the dough on a lightly floured surface to ½ inch thickness and cut out rings. Transfer to a floured baking sheet.

Fry the doughnuts until golden brown, about 2 minutes each side. Rest the doughnuts on a baking sheet lined with paper towels. Make sure the oil temperature stays the same before adding another batch.

Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon mixture.

Adapted from Crispy Bits and Burnt Ends