roasted squash, pear and apple quinoa

Every year my girlfriends and I host an annual gift exchange dinner.  We each bring a bottle of booze, a gift and a dish to share.  My friends brought fabulous dishes to compliment the main course of pistachio crusted salmon with a cherry sauce and I decided to make a roasted squash, pear and apple quinoa side dish.

food (food) | baby reds & green bean salad

I'm so lucky to have a baby that eats everything, but he is picky in his own way.  He eats based on the color of his food.  With any typical meal, he eats the bright, vibrant food first, then leaves the dull colored items for last (this is mostly protein) even though he loves it all just the same.  Needless to say we have no problems with getting him to eat his veggies.  Since summer is around the corner and warm weather is upon us, I'm so excited to put together light salads for the family to eat.  When I decided to serve Salisbury steak the other night, I wanted to pair it with a light, but hearty cold salad to compliment it.  Since Liam loves green beans and we had baby reds on hand I decided to whip up this great salad.

Here is what you'll need:

• 1 bag of baby red potatoes
• 1 bag of trimmed green beans
• 12 radishes (cleaned and thinly sliced)
• 4 stalks of chopped green onions
• 1 diced red bell pepper
• 4 tbsp of olive oil
• Salt
• Course ground pepper
• 2 tbsp of garlic powder
• 2 tbsp of onion powder
• Juice from 1 lemon

Directions:

• In a large pot, boil water and cook the bag of baby reds until tender (around 15 minutes)
• In another pot, boil water and cook green beans until softened but still a little crisp.  If you buy a bag of cleaned/trimmed green beans you can usually cook the beans in the bag.  I usually do it for about 3 minutes.
• Let green beans and potatoes cool in the fridge for about 10 minutes.  When they are cooled, cut green beans to 1 inch in size and quarter the baby reds
• In a large bowl toss radishes, green onions, baby reds, green beans, red bell pepper, olive oil and lemon juice.
• Season with garlic powder, onion powder, ground pepper and salt.
• Place in fridge and cool until the salad is ready to eat.

food (food) | fattoush salad

I'm convinced that I could easily live in the middle east solely because of the food. I love everything from shawarma to kubideh to hummus and my personal favorite - fattoush salad.  This salad is super simple, but has a big bold flavor.  Even though it seems simple to make, I would always resort to getting it from my favorite restaurant or take out place because it just tastes so much better when someone else makes it.  However, I caved in and finally made it for myself.  I ended up liking it so much that I ate it for an entire week. :)

Here's what you'll need:

• 1cup chopped romaine lettuce
• 1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped cucumbers (you'll want these veggies to be roughly the same size)
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced radishes
• 1/2 cup crushed pita chips 
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• Juice from 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp garlic salt (I use Mama Garlic seasoning from Whole Foods - it tastes great on everything!)
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Place all vegetables and pita chips into a large bowl.  In a separate small bowl, add lemon juice, garlic salt and olive oil.  Whisk together and pour over salad.  Mix until coated evenly.

I usually serve the salad with a piece grilled chicken served on top for some protein, but the salad is great all on it's own.  For a full meal middle eastern feast you can serve with dolmas (store bought for me), hummus and a piece of pita bread.  Enjoy!