Yummy and healthy dish

I can still remember the very first time I came upon Bea’s blog La Tartine Gourmande. I was awestruck to say the least. Those gorgeous airy photographs! Delicate, flowery and with a clear style. I was hooked. We’re literally talking years ago. It must have been 5 years ago, I think. I honestly don’t know. Do you know or remember that very first moment you saw a food blog and thought, wow, maybe that is something I should be doing too?

Why do people decide to start a food blog? To begin with there should be a clear interest in food, otherwise; what is the point but there are tens of thousands of people out there that have a strong love for food, but absolutely no inclination to start a food blog. Mine is not even that old. With a mere 3 years it’s a medium aged blog. A lot don’t survive past a year, a few make it to more then 5. But what is it, that makes you start a blog? Most of the people reading my blog are probably bloggers themselves and a lot of them I follow too. And I love it. I love to follow all your blogs (if only there was more time!) and I love to write in my own blog too.

Juicy tomatoes and pink quinoa

There is nothing more satisfying for me then to have a clear idea on what I want to make, shoot it and then write about it. Let’s face it; a food blog is not only about food. That would probably make it slightly boring. I made this and that and it tasted good, bad or ugly. No one is going to want to read that more then once. It’s always funny to notice that the posts I write that have nothing to do with food, are often the ones that get the most amount of comments or the most traffic. The funny stories that is. Or the ones that are deeply personal. It’s at those moments that the blogging community can be at it’s best, I think.

I think I’ve said it before but blogging has brought me so much! I’ve met so many wonderful people along the way, both in real life and through twitter and Facebook and obviously through the blog itself. People that are now part of my life and that I love dearly. How cool is that? So to everyone who thinks blogging is weird I would say; try it first (but with your heart and soul in it!) and then judge.

Coming back to Bea; I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her in person at Foodblogger Connect last year and while that was too brief and in a large group of people, I would have loved to chat a bit more with her. She seems to be the same person you ‘see’ online when you meet her. With that lovely French accent.

So naturally when I found out that she was going to make a book I just had to have it. And even though I think I had to wait for about two years to actually hold the book in my hands; it is here now. And it’s every bit as gorgeous as I had expected it to be. The photos are just gorgeous but the recipes. O the recipes are even better!

Juicy tomatoes and pink quinoa

So when I found out that Nurit from Family Friendly Food had the same book, we quickly agreed on both cooking something from the book and blogging about it. We haven’t shared which recipe we’ve cooked, so for both of us it’s a surprise..;) Nurit and I have done a similar thing a while back where we picked pancakes recipes from around the world and made blintzes, blinis and some other yummy pancakes in the process. So it’s fun virtually cooking together again!

You would want to buy this is you saw it right?

In the name of health I picked this gorgeous recipe. And guess what happens; I had beets in my veggie box this week so figured I’d roast those and then use these for the salad. So early this morning I wrapped them in aluminum foil and roasted them for a while. (1,5 hour as they were big) And guess what? Turns out they’re yellow beets! Now that was not what I wanted! This quinoa salad is so pretty because it’s pink. And yellow beetroots, ladies and gentleman, do not become pink. So I cheated a bit and bought a precooked beet at the supermarket this morning. Tsssk. I did still use the yellow one which is why the salad is not so pretty and pink as I wanted to, so I made up for it with the props used.

The salad itself is absolutely delicious with the sweetness of the tomatoes and the salty feta. Yum! The book I can only recommend as I plan to cook much more from it and I know Nurit has already done loads of recipes and was enthusiastic over most, if not all!

You can read Nurit’s post here.

La Tartine Gourmande – Recipes for an inspired life

Beetroot and quinoa salad with feta

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Serves	4-6
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	15 minutes
Total time	25 minutes
Dietary	Vegetarian
Meal type	Lunch, Salad
Misc	Pre-preparable, Serve Cold
From book	La Tartine Gourmande

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons pinenuts
• 200g quinoa (uncooked)
• 475ml water
• seasalt
• 1 cooked beet (large, peeled and diced and make sure it's red)
• 100g cherry tomatoes
• 90g feta (crumbled)
• 1/4 piece red onion (finely chopped)

vinaigrette

• sea salt
• pepper
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley (chopped)
• 1 tablespoon cilantro (chopped)
• 1 tablespoon chives (chopped)
• 1 tablespoon mint (chopped)

Directions

Toast the pinenuts in a frying pan over medium heat for 2 minutes or until lightly colored and fragrant, remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

Rinse the quinoa under cold water and drain it in a colander. Add it to a pot and cover with the water or broth and a pinch of seasalt. Cook for about 12-15 minutes until most or all of the water is absorbed. Turn of the heat and let it stand for a further 5 minutes with the lid on.

Transfer the quinoa to a bowl and fluff it up with a fork and make sure it cools down. Add the beet and toss gently. If you do not mistakingly have a yellow beet then your quinoa will turn lovely and pink. Add the tomatoes, onion and cheese.

vinaigrette

In a small bowl, combine the sea salt and pepper with the olive oil and lemon juice and whisk to combine. Stir in the herbs. Dress the salad with this vinaigrette and adjust the seasoning to your taste. Serve with the pinenuts

Note

It's funny that I only now find out that I totally forgot to add pinenuts. It was still very lovely. I left out the onion, as I don't particularly like raw onions but I used spring onions instead. I also used spring onions in place of the chives as I had those left in the fridge.

Related Posts:

• Bull’s blood salad with halloumi
• Greek salad
• Lamb’s lettuce salad with feta and tomatoes
• Quinoa, feta and walnut salad
• Orzo with feta, tomatoes and dill

Salad with bull's blood leaves and halloumi

As I have told you before I have a hard time resisting ingredients which I have not seen before and when they have an imaginative name like ‘Bull’s Blood’… well, there is only one course of action possible as far as I’m concerned and that is to put it in my basket! I was really shopping for pecans to bring with me to Germany as I spend a weekend there with Meeta from the blog ” What’s for Lunch Honey?” and we had a great time! (more on that possibly later) but finding those pecans was just an excuse to go to a shop at my favorite store in Amsterdam. I could really spend hours there just roaming around and the only downside is that I always (always!) come back with things I don’t really need. I do use them so rest assured that nothing will go to waste but still… it’s a struggle sometimes to have everything finished before the expiration date..lol..

Delicious dressing from I like that

The ingredients that went into this salad certainly had no risk of getting old or stale as they were all eaten outside on a gloriously sunny day the same day I bought them. Ofcourse there was my favorite cheese to use in salads which is halloumi. You can see some more halloumi related salads on my blog here, here and here. Key to this salad was another new find and that is a dressing by a company called ‘I like that“. Now to me, with a name like that it just had to be a winner. They have interesting flavor combinations and the company is originally located in South Africa. This dressing is so much more then the boring ones you can find in our regular supermarket. The flavors were intense and the smoked sundried tomatoes really shone through. I paired my bull’s blood leaves (which is essentially just a variety of beetroot leaves) with the crispy bits of fried halloumi, lovely juicy tiny tomberries and on top of that I quickly caramelized some toasted almond slivers with honey and put them on top of the salad.

Absolutely delicious and this will be a winner for me, if I could only find those beetroot leaves in my regular store! I could ofcourse grow them myself. Now there’s a thought for next year!

Salad with bull’s blood leaves, halloumi and tomberries

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Serves	1
Prep time	10 minutes
Cook time	5 minutes
Total time	15 minutes
Meal type	Salad

Ingredients

• 2 handfuls bull's blood salad leaves (this is a type of leave from beetroot. Usually from seed)
• 100g halloumi
• 50g tomberries (very small yellow variety of tomatoes. Use any other tomato you want!)
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon rock chives (the baby chives...)
• 2 tablespoons almond slivers
• dressing of your choice (I used dressing from 'I like that' (smoked sundried tomato vinaigrette))

Directions

Cut slices from the halloumi and cut those again in cubes. I like them medium sized but you can always make them as large or as big as you want. Heat a small layer of sunflower oil in a frying pan and once the oil is hot, quickly fry the halloumi until golden brown. Be careful as it does tend to spatter. Leave to drain on paper towels

Wash the salad leaves and put them on a plate with the tomberries.

Heat a frying pan and toast the almonds quickly until golden. Add a tablespoon of honey and stir making sure all almonds are covered. keep an eye on it, as it will burn easily.

Once the halloumi is slightly cooled, distribute over the salad leaves, add the almonds and the rock chives on top. Sprinkle some of the dressing on top of the salad and enjoy!

Note

I totally loved the combination of flavors in this recipe. The crunch of the halloumi with the sweetness of the almonds works really well and the dressing from "I like that", was just brilliant here. If you're making your own dressing I would go with similar flavors but really it's pretty versatile.

Related Posts:

• Greek salad
• Strawberry feta salad
• Beetroot quinoa with feta and tomatoes
• Quinoa, feta and walnut salad
• Orzo with feta, tomatoes and dill

Citrus salad

On the fear of sounding ridiculous… it’s soo warm right now…:) Haha… well it is warm and lovely right now so I am not complaining! Honestly! As you can tell the weather is going a bit up and down right now but sofar the predictions are that it is going to be sunny for easter weekend! Fingers crossed!! I always think it is amazing how all those bare trees can go from nothing to green in just a matter of days when it is the right temperature. It’s almost the same with blossom trees; one moment there is nothing and the next; bloomheaven all over! We have this amazing endless row of appleblossom trees on one of the roads leading to the highway and it amazes me everytime I pass it. Soooo beautiful! People stop and take photos of it. It only lasts for a very short period of time unfortunately but still… it’s a delight everytime!

With spring in my mind I figured I would make another springy salad for lunch yesterday and it was nice but not something I will make again. I don’t mind a little bit of work for a lunchsalad but this was just too much hassle with having to peel the orange and the grapefruit that went in it. I should have shot it on a white plate too instead of on a yellow one, but too late to change that now. It was also on the too light side. I felt hungry like 10 minutes after finishing the salad so you will definitely need a sandwich or something more substantial to go with this salad. It will be perfect and fresh though for a hot day.

Beetroot

I also had another shoot for the citycouncil and found another great store with things you cannot find in the rest of this town, so I’m quite pleased with their selection of vegetables and other delicacies. They even have vanilla beans, which is something you cannot find around here normally. I was especially pleased to find beetroot. In june of last year I saw this fabulous recipe at Sabra’s blog, Cookbook Catchall and I desperately wanted to make it but I could not find beetroot anywhere!! I searched the entire town and the next, but the only thing I could find was the cooked and ready variety which was not what I wanted. So imagine my surprise when I saw these lovely beetroots lying in the store when I walked in. Guess what I will be making soon?

Here is the recipe for the Citrus salad if you want to give it a try:

CITRUS SALAD WITH SUGARSNAPS (serves 4)

100 gr of sugarsnaps

2 oranges

2 small grapefruit

walnuts

arugula

red salad

1 cucumber

for the dressing:

2 tbsp walnut oil

2 tbsp of tarragon vinegar

1 tbsp of olive oil

1 teaspoon of coarse mustard

1 teaspoon of sweet chili sauce

Put the sugarsnaps in an empty bowl or pan and pour boiling water over it and let sit for about 2 minutes. Drain and rinse the sugarsnaps with cold water. Peel the orange and grapefruit and remove all white skins. Chop the walnuts into small chunks. Make small slices or cubes of the cucumber and put all salad ingredients together in a large bowl.

Make the dressing by putting the ingredients in a pot and shake well. Toss with the salad and serve.

Related Posts:

• Feta cucumber salad
• Mediterranean couscous and lentil salad
• Lamb’s lettuce salad with feta and tomatoes
• Quinoa, feta and walnut salad
• Lettuce, chicory and apple salad