This baby was created last week. Born into the Foliage salad world after a delightful lunch with my sister.
We were trying out a new cafe (Raw Sugar Cafe) and we shared the smashed avo and the quinoa salad. The food was great, but the lasting impression was definitely the smoked quinoa which left me with a prolonged after thought of “how do they get the quinoa so smoky and delicious” this inspired me to go home and do some research around how to get that amazing flavour in my salads!
After doing a fair bit of research, online, books, magazines, it became apparent that there were several “smoky “methods, I decided to go for the healthier, and fuss-free approach, which included items that I thought most people would have in their pantry. Who would have thought that honey, cumin, lemon and smoked paprika could do so much! I then added my favourite salad ingredients, which you will see below in a pretty neat picture I took in my friend, Jamie’s amazing kitchen that I asked if I could use for this post- thanks Jam. Perfect excuse to spend time with an amazing friend, use her beautiful kitchen for photography, feed her and her mama lunch, maybe or maybe not have a glass of wine, and play with this ridiculously cute kitten. What a great day it was.
I love food, what I love most about it, is that it brings people together, it is a reason to “be” with people, whether it is over a meal or preparing food with someone, it is an experience, you talk, laugh, cry, whatever. Spending the day mucking around in the kitchen with my friend today, was food for the soul, and sharing my little passion with her, with her being as equally enthusiastic, made me feel so blessed to have a friend like her. 
I found this smoked paprika (how great is the tin) at countdown, any brand will do, if you are struggling to locate it, you can easily get hold of it at the mediterranean food warehouse.
This salad came out really well, better than I expected, and I will definitely be making it again, and again, and I hope you do too! Please a comment below to let me know what you thought of this salad, I would love to hear from you!
- For the Salad:
- 2 handfuls of baby spinach leaves
- ½ pumpkin, skin removed and cut into 2cm pieces
- ¼ cup lightly toasted pumpkin seeds
- 180 grams Haloumi, cut into 1cm rectangles
- 2 cups of organic chicken stock (or vegetable)
- ½ cup baby tomatoes, washed and halved lengthways
- 1 ripe avocado, diced
- 1 cup of organic quinoa
- 1 tablespoon of smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- Good pinch of salt and pepper
- For the Dressing:
- Juice and zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1.5 tablespoons of honey
- 1 tablespoon of smoked paprika
- ½ tablespoon cumin
- Sea salt and cracked pepper- generous
- Set oven to 200ºC and line a baking tray with baking paper.
- Cut skin from pumpkin and dice into 2cm cubes, toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, smoked paprika, cumin and lots of salt and pepper.
- Pop into the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.
- In a saucepan, add 2 cups chicken stock and 1 cup of rinsed quinoa, bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 25 minutes, or until most of the stock has evaporated.
- Combine dressing ingredients and mix well.
- In a frying pan over high heat, add a dash of olive oil and fry haloumi for about 1 minute per side or until golden, set aside on a paper towel to absorb excess oil.
- Add the pumpkin seeds to the same pan and toast until golden around 2 -5 minutes.
- Cut tomatoes, dice avocado and cut haloumi into thirds.
- Add the dressing to the quinoa and mix through. Add the remaining ingredients and serve warm.
Who doesn’t love the good old classic caesar salad! This is definitely a bit of a twisted caesar salad, with the addition of pumpkin, and sun-dried tomatoes instead of fresh tomatoes. I am not a huge fan of fresh tomatoes in a caesar salad, I don’t know why, because I love tomatoes, but always find when I am eating a caesar salad, I leave the tomatoes! So I opted to try it out with sun-dried version and I was very pleased with the results! I also used rocket instead of cos lettuce, so really one could argue that it isn’t really a caesar salad at all, but the dressing definitely has the qualities of a caesar salad!
This Pumpkin, Bacon & Sun-Dried Tomato Caesar Salad is seasonally versatile, and pretty hearty with the chicken, croutons and pumpkin. It will quite easily feed 4 hungry tummy’s. I opt for free-range chicken and bacon where ever I can, although it is a little more expensive, the reassurance that the animal was bred as close as it can be to it’s natural environment, and was (hopefully) well cared for and lived a happy life is totally worth it for me. It also has a lot more flavour, and is a lot better for you without the added hormones and preservatives.
I have chosen to create crunchy crouton’s from wholegrain rolls, you could easily make this salad gluten-free by choosing a gluten-free bread to toast, but make sure you add in some form of crouton as it really pulls this salad together! I have made this countless times for group barbecues or events and it almost always gets devoured. Make sure you toss the dressing through the salad before adding in the croutons and egg to avoid mushy croutons and crushed egg. Place your egg quarters, or halves on top of the salad when ready to serve, which look beautiful.
While I am here I just need to talk about mayonnaise. Kewpie mayonnaise is a MUST. I cannot give this mayo enough credit, it is honestly the best thing since sliced bread. The point of difference Kewpie mayo has, is that it is made from egg yolk, compared to whole egg, giving it a really creamy rich flavour. Kewpie brands itself upon using only the highest quality ingredients (eggs, vinegar, vegetable oil & spices). Fun fact: During World War II, when high quality ingredients were hard to come by, the founder of Kewpie Mayonnaise decided to cease the production until he could get hold of excellent quality ingredients suitable for Kewpie Mayonnaise. Kudos to them, the quality of this mayo definitely reflects fine ingredients.
