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Foliage

Salad Designer

spinach

SMOKED QUINOA HALOUMI SALAD

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!Smoked Quinoa & Haloumi Salad-Half SaladAfter 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.Smoked Quinoa & Haloumi Salad-Half SaladI 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. Smoked Quinoa & Haloumi Salad   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.Smoked Quinoa & Haloumi SaladThis 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!Smoked Quinoa & Haloumi Salad

SMOKED QUINOA HALOUMI SALAD
 
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Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 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
Method
  1. Set oven to 200ºC and line a baking tray with baking paper.
  2. Cut skin from pumpkin and dice into 2cm cubes, toss with 1 tablespoon olive oil, smoked paprika, cumin and lots of salt and pepper.
  3. Pop into the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.
  4. 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.
  5. Combine dressing ingredients and mix well.
  6. 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.
  7. Add the pumpkin seeds to the same pan and toast until golden around 2 -5 minutes.
  8. Cut tomatoes, dice avocado and cut haloumi into thirds.
  9. Add the dressing to the quinoa and mix through. Add the remaining ingredients and serve warm.

OLIVE, PESTO & COURGETTE RIBBON SALAD

This Olive, Pesto & courgette Ribbon Salad is the perfect summer salad! This is a summer go-to of mine, it looks and tastes so fresh and healthy, and compliments virtually any dish. I guarantee if you take this courgette ribbon salad to a dinner party or gathering you will get some serious kudos for it!

I have used home grown courgettes, which have so much more flavour that the supermarket ones! I love “spiralizing” or “zoodling” or “noodling” or whatever you want to call it, its such a great way to change the form of a vegetable and use it in different ways.

There are many ways you could “do” this salad, depending on the occasion, what you have in the fridge and your creativity/energy levels. My sister and I sat and discussed the bowl of healthy greens that sat before us today at lunch, feta, sun-dried tomatoes, preserved lemons, and even chorizo made an appearance- who doesn’t love chorizo! I hope you enjoy this Olive, Pesto & courgette Ribbon Salad as much we both did today.

OLIVE, PESTO & COURGETTE RIBBON SALAD
 
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Ingredients

  • For the salad:
  • 4 medium courgettes washed and “zoodled”
  • ¼ cup of kalamata olives halved lengthways
  • ¼ cup of lightly toasted pinenuts
  • ¼ cup finely shaved parmesan cheese
  • 1 cup sweet baby peas (I use frozen)
  • 1 cup washed baby spinach leaves

  • For the dressing:
  • ¼ cup of basil pesto
  • juice & rind of 1 large, ripe lemon
  • salt & pepper

  • Optional:
  • fresh basil leaves
Method
  1. Wash courgettes, chop the ends off, and put through a spiralizer to make courgette noodles, set aside on a plate lined with 4 paper towels, sprinkle a generous amount of table salt over the zoodles and set aside to rest- this will draw out the excess fluid from the courgettes.
  2. Wash baby spinach and fresh basil leaves if you have these, and set aside to dry.
  3. Bring a small pot of lightly salted water to the boil and cook baby peas for 2-3 minutes, remove from heat, discard hot water, and douse in cold water to stop them from overcooking.
  4. Lightly toast pinenuts until golden brown in a hot dry pan- ensure you keep a close eye on them because they can burn quickly!!
  5. Halve the kalamata olives lenghthways and finely shave the parmesan cheese.
  6. To make the dressing combine pesto, juice and rind of 1 lemon, and season to taste with salt and pepper
  7. Return to the zoodles and gently squeeze with a handful of paper towels, toss the noodles around and keep squeezing to encourage the water out, you may need to do this a few times and renew the paper towels with dry ones as they become damp quickly!
  8. Place zoodles into a salad bowl, along with baby spinach, peas, olives and pine nuts- leave a few to dress the salad with when ready to serve.
  9. Toss with salad dessing prepared earlier until well mixed through.
  10. Sprinkle over the shaved parmesan and remaining pine nuts and serve.