Friday Recipe - Sweet Potatoes and Zucchini Walnut Quinoa Salad

OK... a new locally-sourced, in-season recipe! Well, the veggies... Here is what you need:

Zucchini-Walnut-Quinoa

1/2 cup quinoa

1 cup broth

3 medium zucchini

handful of walnuts

coconut oil

Honey-Sweet Potato Bake

2 large sweet potatoes

olive oil of your choice

raw, local honey

ground cinnamon

ground ginger

black pepper

First, preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Wash the zucchini and shred it. I used a standard food processor.  Put the zucchini shreds in a colander in the sink or over a bowl and salt. This will get the moisture out of the zucchini and make it less moist when cooking. You don't have to do this - I actually prepared it both ways and it worked out just fine. When sweating it, I had my colander over a bowl to catch the liquid and used it for my peas!

You only need to sweat the zucchini for about 20 minutes and then ring it out and/or press it out with paper towels. Set aside. It can actually sweat while you move on to the potatoes and quinoa.

Wash and dice your sweet potatoes. Place them into a baking pan (can be glass or metal). I use non-stick foil to line my pan, but you do whatever non-stick option you like. Drizzle the potatoes with olive oil, honey, cinnamon, ginger and black pepper. Put them in the oven and set your timer for 20 minutes.

With that in the oven, rinse your quinoa and put in a medium saucepan. Add your broth and turn the heat to medium-high. When this comes to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

While this is going, your potatoes will have baked for 20 minutes. Stir them with a spoon and then bake them another 20 minutes, or until they reach desired tenderness.

The last piece is the zucchini. In a saute pan, add just a tiny bit of oil of choice (coconut for me), and stir in your shredded zucchini. If you want to get fancy and add leeks or garlic, feel free! Once they are sauteed (only takes about 5 to 10 minutes), remove from pan and set aside.

OK, are your potatoes, quinoa and zucchini all done? You can go ahead and mix the zucchini and quinoa if you like, but this is optional. The final step is the walnuts - this jazzes the zucchini up a little. I just took my walnuts and crushed them with whatever was handy (I had a wooden lemon reemer/juicer that worked just fine) and sprinkled them over the zucchini.

And you're done! A delicious vegetarian meal with just a little more work than usual.