Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Fresh

The theme for April's National Blog Posting Month is "Fresh" so......

We had a nice fresh salad for dinner last night.
sideways = argh!
My food styling really leaves something to be desired.   Kale, Quinoa, and Avocado Salad with Lemon Dijon VinaigretteAnother new recipe in our  healthier eating quest.  I'm impressed that Paul has been willing to try all these new recipes since he's not usually a terribly adventurous eater.  Then again, he did grow up in the school of appreciate-whatever-is-put-in-front-of-you-since-you-did-not-cook-it-and-that's-all-you-are-getting-unless-you-want-to-cook-it-yourself.  All that being said, last night he said, when the plate was in front of him, "Oh, I get it.  It's April fool's day.  Where's the real dinner?"  Ha.  Ha.  We actually both liked it.  Me more than he, but he still liked it and stated he would eat it again.  Which he will have to, since there are leftovers.

But, on to the recipe.  This was, to me, VERY yummy.  Kale, quinoa, avocado, red pepper, onion, feta cheese.  Olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper and a little sugar for the dressing. Mmmmmmm.  I've never purposely eaten kale.  I've heard it really, really, really good for you, but I always thought it was bitter and you had to cook it endlessly in order to make it tender.  Not so.  (I think I was confusing it with collard greens... ).  It was steamed for a few  minutes and has a very pleasant taste and texture.  Oh and the creamy avocado (left off of Paul's - he apparently has his limits) was just so yummy with all of it.  And that salty feta.  You've got to try  it.  (And I'm going to try making kale chips with the leftover kale!)

Here is a look at our fresh dining room update-but-not-really-because-it's-retro.
Our well-loved dining room set was on the way out.  The table itself was doing pretty well, but some of the chairs were getting wobbly and past being able to fix them.
So, we decided to unearth a table that Paul and I bought in 2005 (when we were dating) because we thought it was so cool.  Problem being, when we bought it, we didn't really know how we were going to use it.  Acutally, first we didn't know when we were going to use it because we weren't even living together yet!  But, then we did move to Vermont together and it stayed in storage.  Then we moved here to New York and it still stayed in storage, waiting for us to come up with the best way to use it.  Paul thought we should use it in our casual "game room" where we have a dart board and the ping pong table, and some retro accessories.  I thought from the beginning it would look cool in our newly updated kitchen/dining room, even though it had a retro look. And now, 6 years after moving to New York, we put it in the dining room!
We love it!  It certainly freshens it up, right?
Ha!  Look at that.... no knitting or books in this post!  Next time....


4 comments:

  1. The salad is on my list !!! ...mouth is wattteeerrrrig :). BTW is the avocado really creamy - if so, how do you do that? Or can we leave it in chunks ?
    Ummmmmmm- nah, not going to mention the retro dining set hehehehehe.... xo, me

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  2. Kale chips are delicious really they are, I wouldn't be able to eat them every day but for a treat I made them and they were a hit.
    I love the new dining room table / that color is great, just beautiful my sister bought a house and one of those tables was left in the basement, I think she is using it as a laundry folding table
    I would not get away with serving that salad as dinner, but it sure looks good to me
    Annette

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  3. Found your blog on the NaBloPoMo blog roll. I love that table! My parents had one in their old farm house. Theirs was red :)

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  4. Thanks for reading! I love the red ones - we have some red chairs found at a flea market, but no table.... :)

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