Crazy for Salads!

Making time for a great Thyme Beet Tuna Salad was totally worth it because it barely took me any time! Sorry, I'm having too much fun with this play on words... But what I'm getting at, is that you can cook with very few ingredients to make something so healthy and tasty. However, you can't expect to have all these items handy, so I try to keep my fridge stocked with fruits and veggies at all times along with milk, eggs and certain necessary ingredients to make sure I can whip something up quickly.

THYME BEET TUNA SALAD

This creation started off with left overs of cracked wheat that I had made yesterday, along with beets which I boiled a few days ago and stored in my fridge for convenience. Having these types of items prepared in your fridge ahead of time really saves you time when you want to prepare a meal.

By adding cut up beets to my cracked wheat, I figured I needed to integrate some type of protein and decided to add a can of white tuna fish to do the trick. After combining these 3 ingredients, I felt like I needed some more veggies to complete this salad but I only had tomatoes and a red bell pepper left in my fridge. Of course, I was brave enough to just incorporate all of these together and turns out these flavours really compliment eachother. After a few bites, I wasn't 100% satisfied... I grabbed my jar of pickled turnips and threw in a few to give it a pickled taste, along with a touch of olive oil, rice vinegar, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and fresh herbs which consisted of parsley and thyme.

I took a bite and right there I knew these additional ingredients were necessary. I love salty and pickled flavours and this just did it for me. The beautiful bright pink colour of the beets just complete this refreshing extravagant salad. As always, this nutritious creation gives you your serving of grains, vegetables, fibre, protein, omega-3's and satisfaction!

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Nutri-T's FAMOUS MANGO SALAD

On a rainy day, there's nothing that makes me happier then eating a nice warm chewy chocolate chip cookie, but can you imagine the amount of cookies I would have eaten for every day that rained last week?! I could never allow myself to do this, it's way too dangerous. You can't let days like these ruin your health... I figured why not make something as good, if not, more delicious and nutritious! Of course, my famous mango salad made me quite happy. A mango is an amazing fruit alone, but can be so versatile and be used in so many different dishes- in a smoothie, served as a chutney with chicken or pork, but certainly, my favourite way is integrating one in a salad. A nice ripe mango gives this salad a rich and sweet juicy flavour, pairing well with all the other fresh vegetables including the kale, asparagus, red peppers, tomatoes and white kidney beans. 

Ingredients:

1 mango

1 red bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper 

1-2 tomatoes

1/4 - 1/2 cup cucumbers

1/4- 1/2 cup asparagus

1 cup of kale

1 can of white kidney beans

Fresh parsley and cilantro

Feta cheese for garnish

Salt & Pepper

Dressing: Lemon juice, olive oil, splash of rice vinegar

Spring and Summer Inspired Cooking!

May was a busy month! I unfortunately put my blog to the side, but definitely not my cooking. Luckily,  I have found the time to share these couple nutritious creations of mine...

BBQ Party! 

My sister C hosted a fairly big BBQ party mid May and my dad was in charge of barbecuing the meat. Our Armenian roots tend to make us buy tons of varied meats, so he bought a few racks of pork ribs, T-bone steaks, chicken drum sticks and even managed to do a home made pig roast in the rain. Barbecuing is definitely my favourite way of cooking meat. I think my dad has mastered this style of cooking, only because he chops the wood himself to make the coals which results in better smoky flavours for the meat.

My dad's set up in the rain

My contribution for the evening was a Hummus Dip with a twist of Beets and a Black Bean Quinoa Corn Salad. For the Beet Humus, I was inspired by another nutrition student blogger from BC, but of course I tweaked it and made it my own. It was a hit at the party, I got lots of compliments and my nephew definitely ate most of it!

Heart healthy BEET HUMMUS DIP

Ingredients: 

1 can chick peas

 5 medium beets

 2 cloves garlic

 olive oil

splash of white vinegar

tahini 

salt & pepper

 paprika

parsley for garnish 

I served home made whole wheat pita chips along with the dip... great combo! 

Even my little nephew of 19 months can't get enough of this dip! 

BLACK BEAN QUINOA CORN SALAD

As we were prepping food for the day, my oldest sister R, mentions this salad she loves from Costco. She briefly mentioned a few ingredients that this salad consisted of and I decided to recreate this famous salad she spoke of. Turns out, it was almost identical! 

Ingredients: 

Serves: 10 people 

1/2 cup of white quinoa

1/2 - 3/4 cup of red quinoa 

1/2 cup frozen corn

1 can black beans

1 red bell pepper sliced 

1 green bell pepper sliced 

3/4 of parsley chopped finely  

2 green onions

2-3 tomatoes sliced 

3/4 cup cucumbers 

Dressing: olive oil, lemon, white wine vinegar, salt & pepper and fresh thyme (or dried). 

By the way, I never measure my ingredients when I create my dishes. These are approximate measures, so you may not necessarily recreate these to the T, but have fun with your taste buds and learn to explore! I'm here to inspire you :)

In case you have questions feel free to contact me @ tsark029@gmail.com