Hi everyone, WELCOME BACK!!!

I hope that everyone’s vacation went well…
But now that the back-to-school season has started, back to our good old habits: school, work, cooking, homework, laundry, ironing, extra-curricular activities, shopping, and so on and so forth!! Quite a full schedule !

So I propose that for this school year, we go back to the kitchen very lightly, in order to re-accustom ourselves without spending too much time and most of all without stress.

And on top of that, with the holidays just around the corner in October, this is not the time to accumulate extra pounds!!!!
God knows that we’ll be weeeelllll served between Rosh Hashana and Sukkos!!! 😉

So today, since the weather is nice (at least in Paris, lol), I propose to you a delicious quinoa salad full of vegetables, colors, and flavors.

In short, it’s just one of the ways to prolong your vacation on your plate 😉

INGREDIENTS:

 

• About 250g rinsed quinoa

• 1 tomato

• 1 avocado

• 1 zucchini

• 1 teacup preserved tomatoes

• 1 bunch of chives

• 1 bunch of basil

• 1 bunch fresh onions or spring onions (according to your taste,. none, a little or a lot)

• salt and pepper

• olive oil

• 1 lemon

• soy sauce

 

 

RECIPE:

• First start by rinsing the quinoa well, because otherwise it could be bitter!

• Cook the quinoa in slightly salted boiling water until it is cooked al dente (watch the instructions on the pack). Rinse it in cold water to stop the cooking process and drain it well.

• Cut the vegetables in small cubes like in the picture: zucchinis, fresh tomatoes and avocado.

• Thinly slice the chives, the basil, and then the fresh onions and the preserved tomatoes.

• Marinate the zucchinis and the tomatoes in a bit of oil and soy so that they give off their juice.

• Get rid of the excess vegetable water and incorporate it into the quinoa.

• Add the chopped preserved tomatoes, the diced avocado, the fresh onions, the basil and the chives.

• Season with olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice.

• Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary.

• It’s ready!!

TIPS:

 

• Marinating the vegetables in soy helps to take out part of the water contained in the vegetables.
  It’s usually why once we season our salad we find ourselves an hour later with a salad full of water!!
  So to avoid this inconvenience, marinate them, wait for them to let out the juice, and get rid of the liquid to keep only the vegetables, whose flavors will have become concentrated!!!

• In this salad, I opted for basil and chives, because I find that it gives a summery taste that harmonizes perfectly with the tomatoes and the zucchinis.
  But feel free to change it, and to switch for example to parsley, cilantro or even mint…

• It’s best to marinate the quinoa before cooking it because it removes the bitterness that it could otherwise have.

• Furthermore, as you can see, I put chives and fresh onions.
  It gives a bit of a « garlicky » flavor without the inconveniences of raw garlic.
  I point out that I slice the onion very thin so that it mixes well with the quinoa.
  In my case, my husband is quite sensitive to rather strong tastes: raw garlic, raw onions, not for him!!!
  However, the thinly sliced fresh onion in this salad doesn’t bother him.
  But just in case, if you don’t like it, you can remove it and keep only the chives, whose taste is similar to spring onion.

 

BON APPÉTIT!!!!