use real butter

Recipe: quinoa, fruit and nut salad

I first read about quinoa three years ago in a food article and I tucked it away in my head. It is a great Scrabble or Tiles word to use up that Q, and everyone around you who isn’t a food dork declares it isn’t a word. What do they know? Quasar is another good one, but that has nothing to do with food. I only sampled quinoa a few times in restaurants, but lately I’ve been trying to work more grains into my diet because I love them and it is really a lack of exposure that has kept me from experimenting in the kitchen more than anything else.

When I saw my grandma at Elena’s house a few weekends ago, she made some interesting Chinese dishes. I was familiar with all of the ingredients except for one. She called it a Chinese potato (or a Japanese potato). I thought, “What on Earth could a Chinese potato be?” Well, she showed me, and prepped it, and I ate it – it’s delicious!

On our drive home, we passed through Super H Mart where I used that matching function in my brain – the one that says, “this image in your head is the same as that image before you now”. I found the potatoes! They were labeled as Japanese potatoes. Upon some quick research, I found that these are in fact called Okinawan Sweet Potatoes.

I had told my physician that I worried about getting enough calcium because I am lactose intolerant. She asked what I normally eat and I gave her a rundown of a typical week. She told me that dark leafy greens were a good source of calcium and that some asian cultures have shown to have better calcium intake in their diets because they ate foods high in a vitamin I have since forgotten which helps calcium absorption. All I remember is that, yes, I eat plenty of that too.

I picked up some lovely organic kale the other day at Whole Foods Paycheck. Growing up, I remembered seeing kale as a garnish. One curly sprig with some pathetic half-dried cherry tomato or orange slice on the side… My mom was a wonder with vegetables. She not only cooked a ton of them, but she cooked them so they retained a brilliant healthy color, great flavor, excellent texture, and were totally nutritious. Boiling To Death was not an option in her kitchen.

**Jump for more butter**