Warm Quinoa Salad

Also no carrots here. I just got a new oven and I'm still trying to figure out all the fancy functions.

Warm Quinoa Salad - by me!

 "Mom, what if someone broke into our house to steal your food because it was so good.  You better be careful". - Henry after eating this salad

Total prep time 20 min
Total cook time 30 min

Serves at least 6 people

Ingredients
2 cups quinoa
Organic or home made vegetable or meat stock
1/2 stick Grass Fed Cultured butter(you have no idea how delicious this is.  Please find and use it)
Carrots
Coconut oil for roasting and sauteeing
Real Salt
Cucumbers
Parsley
1 cup red onion or any other onion:green, yellow, etc
Few cloves of garlic
Chopped tomatoes(I used cherry)
Arugula(for me)
(I also threw in some left over chopped brussels sprouts. Asparagus would also be great)

Note: this photo didn't have the carrots yet.  They were still roasting, but it added twice the bulk

Clementine shoving it into her mouth

 First of all, just assume everything is organic, because it is:) There is almost no need to worry about amounts in this recipe.  You can put as little or as much vegetables as you want in your quinoa and it will work.  Cook quinoa in a rice cooker using stock and a half stick of butter or cook according to instructions on the package.  Just throw it all in. Roast carrots, cut into pieces and covered in coconut oil and salt, in the oven at 400 until nice and brown and soft in the middle. Sautee red onions and when almost done, throw in the garlic.  Cut up tomatoes, parsley, cucumbers and anything else you have lying around.  Good additions would be roasted cauliflower(my personal favorite), roasted zucchini, mozzarella, parmesan cheese, let your mind run wild.  Chop everything up and throw it all together in a bowl and mix.  Serve on top of arugula or by itself and top with parmesan cheese. Salt and pepper to taste.

Vivi finishing off the last bite.

Real Food Style

I've always liked all vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and to some, I might have had a pretty healthy diet.  However, I have also always liked candy, ice cream, chips and cookies and never shied away from eating as much of those as I possibly could.  I am also a very big eater and have always wondered why I wasn't obese because I eat so much food in general.  I'm like a fat person living in a thin body...until now.

A couple of months ago I was asked to do a BYU Women's Conference sharing station(booth) on Nutrition and I groaned inside myself because I knew what I believed in, which was a more traditional idea of eating food instead of what current trends were telling us about weight loss and cancer prevention.  I knew my conscience wouldn't let me live it down if I didn't present my more extreme, traditional idea of diet to the sisters in the conference.  Well, I enlisted the help of my dear friend Lindsay Killian and she gathered up a bunch of women who were all fully committed to living this lifestyle and they helped me put together the most amazing sharing station and it was a huge success.

Along the way I learned a lot of things that I wasn't aware of and I started implementing them into my life and I've had the most wonderful transformation of will.  I used to live the Body for Life eating plan which allowed me to eat sweets only once a week(which is still a decent way to live if you crave sweets) and all week long I would be craving candy and cakes and I couldn't say no to a cookie at a church function, so I would save it for my "free" day on Sunday.  After reading, pondering, studying out in my mind and praying about it, I have lost my desire to eat junk food and when I think about it, it seems repulsive to me.  I really feel like I've gained a testimony about how the Lord wants me to treat my body and the spirit it helping me to stay away from harmful substances.

I have also been slowly transforming my children's diet and I really hope I can keep it up in the winter.  Luckily produce is available year round because in winter I usually buy tons of snack foods until summer comes around when I let it peter out and we just eat fruit and veggies until Halloween comes around and then we start eating junk again.  I'm fully committed to scheduling time to cook every day(especially because I enjoy it) and feeding my family foods that aren't processed.

The conversation about processed foods is endless, but all I have to say is that manufacturers of processed foods do not have our health in mind and there have been many recent books published, like Salt Sugar Fat that illustrate how the combination of the three has been formulated to addict us and harm our bodies, and it's just not safe to consume processed foods.

The ladies who helped me at my conference created these wonderful documents about nutrition in it's different categories and I will post them one by one in case anyone wants to read them.  Even if you think you're eating a healthy diet...you may be surprised to learn quite a few changes you can make.

From now on, I will only post healthy recipes and thoughts about consuming healthy foods, which seems to me the natural progression of my blog since it's entitled Hohl Foods.