Quinoa Veggie Salad

Quinoa Veggie Salad

Ingredients:
2-3 cups of uncooked quinoa. Cook according to package direction.
2 tbsp walnut and pecan chopped and roasted
1/4 of each bell red, yellow, orange bell pepper
1 bunch green onion
1 tomato
1 handful of spinach
1 handful of kale
2 tbsp dried cranberries
1 garlic
lemon juice
olive oil
salt
pepper

Direction:
While quinoa cooks wash all vegetables. Chop spinach and kale into bite size. When quinoa is done add the greens to the warm quinoa. Let it stand while you prepare the rest of the veggies.

Cut up green onions, peppers and tomato into tiny pieces.
Add to quinoa with the roasted nuts and cranberry.

Make a dressing with 4 tbsp of lemon juice, 1 tbsp of olive oil, minced garlic, salt and pepper.

Mix it all together and refrigerate. Serve cold.

Enjoy!

Vegetable, Bean Soup

This is the second time that I am making our favorite bean soup with vegetables and without sour cream. It taste and looks so much better than the old version.

Vegetable, bean Soup.
serves 12-16

Ingredients:
900g dry Romano beans
3 medium size carrots
6 parsley roots (also called parsnips)
1/4 celery roots (very rare, celery stalks can be used, needs maybe 2 stalks)
2 tbsp fresh parsley leaves
1 medium onion
3 tbsp olive oil
1 heaping tbs flour
3 barley leaves
1 smoked ham hock (optional)
1 tsp Hungarian Paprika
salt

Soak beans overnight in filtered water. Cube vegetables except celery roots (easier to discard it when soup is done), dice onion, and cut up parsley leaves.

Cook beans with hock on medium to low heat  until beans are almost done. Can't really tell time as beans and hock differ in freshness and length of cooking time will vary. I usually cook the hock in one piece and take it out from the soup and cut it up when it is done.

Add vegetable, carrots, celery, parsley roots. While this is cooking in a pan saute onion in olive oil, when it is see through add flour and paprika. When vegetables are done add onion to the soup, stir and add now add the salt. Cook for another 3-5 minutes.

It is an easy soup to make but takes long. I am sure it can be done in a slow cooker, I just never tried.

This make a huge pot, 6 litres. Daniel had 3, Thomas and Micheal 2 serving and Kalman and I had just one and we still have 3 litres left.

Enjoy!

Intro

Hello Everyone,

I am Timea, a mom to four awesome boys and a wife to an amazing husband. I have been a lactation consultant since 2001 and a holistic lifestyle coach since 2008.

I love life and I love creating meals that are holistic, nutritious for the body and soul. I love seeing my children try new things and love creating meals that turns into some one's favorite. I love to eat and if I eat the right kind of food than I fell well and happy.

We have been trying to leave a holistic lifestyle ever since my twin boys were born, February 20,1991. Can't believe I will have 20 year olds in a couple of months.:)

I have decided to do a blog on sharing my recipes and experiments. I have many traditional Hungarian recipes that I still make and I try other cuisines as well. But almost always I alter the recipe for our taste and to make it more healthy.

I stopped using margarine years ago when someone, I can't remember who, asked me to put a pound of margarine and a pound of butter out in the garage during the summer month for a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Well, nothing happened to the margarine it looked, smelled and even tasted the same way when I put it out there. Then I read that margarine is one molecule away from being plastic. Hard to believe but that did it. I don't want to eat or even feed plastic to my children.

I also avoid soy as much as possible. I find the easier to do that is by cooking from scratch and using as few premade, prepared items as possible.

We have stopped consuming dairy about 18 years ago. What a blessing to our bodies. The only thing that I still buy that is dairy is cheese made from RAW milk and i get it from the health food store and organic butter.

In the past 2 years I have been experimenting with gluten-free baking and cooking and I just love the outcomes. No one in my family have ever been diagnosed with gluten intolerance (celiac disease) but it sure make me feel better and in less pain when I avoid gluten or actually avoid all grain.

The only grain that I can eat without pain is rice and quinoa.

Because it is Christmas time I will start with some traditional Hungarian cakes that I always make for Christmas. I have not tried it gluten free yet, that is my next project but the recipes are altered a bit.

I hope enjoy this blog and will try out some of the recipes.

To Your Health
Timea