Quinoa Salad with Lemon and Olive Oil Dressing.

I recently made this recipe during a Bachelorette Party weekend BBQ and everyone has been asking me for the recipe! So, here it is - Quinoa Salad with Lemon and Olive Oil dressing. So easy, so yummy and good for you!

(Serves 4) – This is the typical recipe I adapted for the salad, but the great thing is that you can add in or take away ingredients depending on your preferences. For example, a friend of mine used feta and added grilled chicken for her and her fiance, and I’ve used green beans in place of chickpeas since I had them on hand.

Salad
1 cup Quinoa (prepared to package directions and cooled)
½ 8oz. container of Grape Tomatoes
¼ C Flat-Leaf Parsley, finely chopped
½ a small log of Goat Cheese, crumbled
¼ C Cucumber, seeded and diced
½ C Pitted Kalamata Olives
½ 15 oz. Can of Chickpeas (AKA Garbanzo Beans)
Salt and Pepper

Dressing
Juice of a fresh lemon – should yield about ¼ a Cup
1 Tsp Lemon Zest
¼ C Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

Directions
Prepare Quinoa according to package directions. To cool, place pot uncovered in fridge for a couple of hours. For a quick cool, place pot uncovered in freezer for 15-20 minutes. Transfer cooled quinoa to a large bowl and add in tomatoes, parsley, chickpeas, goat cheese, cucumber and olives. Toss to combine all ingredients and add salt and pepper to taste.

Combine all dressing ingredients in a small bowl, whisking until dressing emulsifies. Pour over salad and toss to coat.

Lastly, this salad only gets better as time goes on, so be sure to make more in order to enjoy the leftovers for lunch or dinner!

Babysitting.

Last night I had the pleasure of taking care of the two most wonderful babies in the world.

Izze lounging on the couch.

She got the squeaker out of her toy. She's so proud!

My handsome guy sleeping in one of his favorite spots.

Looks like hard work, doesn't it? :o)

Cure for a cold.

I have a cold. Not the minor, I-can-still-get-through-the-day kind. We're talking the knock down, drag out kind that makes you want to chop your nose off.

On top of utilizing all remedies that I can think of, tonight there was no better cure than dinner from my new favorite place, Urban Belly. Voted one of the 50 best new restaurants in US for 2009, you'd think this place boasting a fusion of Asian and Latin noodle dishes would be over-the-top and pricey. But, this little gem sits unassumingly in a strip mall in a Chicago hood called Avondale, encourages communal dining at large wooden tables and greets you with counter style ordering. All of that and it's BYOB. Most of all, the food is AMAZING.

So amazing that my sick and tired body was willing to drive 25 minutes in traffic just to pick up #14 - Asian Egg Noodles with Spicy Garlic Chili, Tofu and Chinese Eggplant. Here's a picture of my yummy dinner before I devoured it.

Bottom line, if you haven't been - make it a MUST on your Chicago restaurant list.

Name Change.

I've decided that with a new year, I need to breed a new outlook. The last 8 months have been tough for me health-wise and I think that a change in perspective is needed.

So that is my resolution - to try and work towards a new sense of self and well-being. What that entails I don't exactly know, but I'm going to start with daily affirmations (you can get one sent to you each day via email or text through AffirmationPlanet.com). Just something to get myself up and running in a positive light - and hoping that it will contribute to better health overall.

Therefore, I've borrowed a line from my favorite fellow in positivity - Jason Mraz - as the new title to this blog. In doing this, I hope that every time I go to post something, I'll be greeted by a phrase and reminder that life's little blips aren't worth all the negative energy I tend to expend on them.

Here's to deep breathing and more happiness in 2010.