A Grainy Start to Summer

Summer is finally here! Although the sun is still playing hide-and-seek in Brussels. Oh well.

Work kept me on the road for the most of the last four weeks. Which meant that I barely cooked during this period as I would be home for only a day before having to leave for the airport or train station again. During which, my fridge contained just a few different bottles of chilli sauce and alcohol.

Now that I’m back in Brussels and will not be travelling much for a while, I happily stocked up on loads of vegetables and fruits, as well as some cheese and dark chocolate. Inspired by the delicious tabouleh at Zoé Bouillon and the salmon+quinoa dinner that I devoured (I finished every single grain!) on the Thalys, I decided to make some tabouleh with quinoa.

First time that I cooked quinoa, and it turned out to be as easy as everyone on the internet said. Yippee! I ended up with a pot of quinoa tabouleh, with lots of coriander and mint (my sister would go “berk!”)

While searching online for a recipe, I learned that quinoa is a type of grain and apparently full of nutrients. How convenient, now that I’ve decided that quinoa is one of my favourite foods! I especially like its texture – reminds me of fish roe bursting in my mouth, as well as how its squiggly little bits (when cooked) remind me of miniature sprouts.

Still keeping with the theme of grains…

Today, I decided to make some granola. Partly because I had bought by mistake a box of muesli instead of granola earlier this week and needed to satisfy my craving. Also, I suspect, simply because I want to use my little oven!

Et voilà, I decided to follow the “formule de base de granola” from Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini. Granola-making is almost as easy-peasy as counting 1-2-3, as long as you don’t make silly mistakes such as forgetting to chop the nuts and mixing the dried fruits into the mix with honey, spices, and all before it goes into the oven. Like yours truly.

I even took several photos while drizzling honey over the raisins as I really liked how the golden liquid fell over the coconut bits. Duh.

Fortunately I realised my folly just before I started stirring. Now, there’s a jar of delicious granola sitting on my kitchen table and I look forward to enjoying it with some yogurt and fresh cherries over the weekend.

By the way, I didn’t have to throw away anything from my mistake(s) as I managed to savage (i.e. painstaking pick out and rinse) the raisins and used them to make a carrot-raisin-lemon salad for tomorrow’s lunch. Miam!