If you haven’t tried quinoa yet, add it to your list. It is a grain-like crop, much more readily available now than it was even a few years ago, probably sold with the rice and barley in stores that carry it. We kind of think of it as a cross between couscous and barley–it tastes more like barley with the consistency of couscous, and therefore lends itself to lots of great uses.

Use this recipe as more of a guide than an absolute. Cook the quinoa according to package directions. If you use the recipe instructions to cook the grains (covered and over high heat for 20 minutes) your result will be a burned mess.

Mix the cooked quinoa with as many colorful and crunchy raw or blanched veggies as you like. If you toss the quinoa with the spinach while it is still hot, you’ll get the very nice wilted effect. It’s a great idea for a new CSA shareholder like me, who is all of a sudden buried in scads of vegetables I might not buy all together in one week.

The instructions are somewhat elaborate as to how you should arrange the salad, but there is no need to stress about this. You can make it as artful and composed as you like, or do what I did: toss the hot quinoa together with the spinach and some roughly chopped dill, and then add in the vegetables all mixed together. Toss with the vinaigrette. It looked lovely.

Raw pumpkin seeds are not something I see often in my travels, but this is a nice element in the salad, so I think you can improvise with toasted pine nuts or almonds for a similar effect. I also added a quarter of a red onion I had leftover in the fridge. Sub asparagus for the broccoli or increase the quantity of radishes if you have some to use up. Try a red or green pepper in place of the cucumber, or skip the beets if you don’t care for them.

There is no reason why this dish can’t be a meal in itself, and I would definitely make it for girlfriends for lunch. However, serving it as dinner would absolutely not fly in my house, so tonight we had it with grilled mahi mahi skewers and that seemed to do the trick. I think it would be a great side dish to bring to a summer party.

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Robin Horrigan is a stay at home mom to a 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. She is the cruise director for her busy family, keeping the calendar full of the stuff that makes life worth living, but leaves plenty of time to shop for shoes. When they’re all at home, you’ll find the Horrigans knee-deep in chocolate chips and cookie racks, baking treats together that celebrate the four seasons and even the silliest of holidays.

So it has been with this newfangled idea they’re calling Meatless Monday. I’ve mostly ignored the background babble. Meatless Monday is a concept initiated by The Monday Campaigns in association with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

When I first heard about Meatless Monday it sounded to me a bit like Backwards Friday, an annual event we had in grade school when all the kids wore their clothes backwards. It was something you do once for the novelty of it–it wasn’t something anyone would make a lifestyle out of.

I have to admit that I didn’t initially investigate the concept or read up on the why and how of Meatless Monday, but it didn’t sound like something I’d try, much less permanently implement (even though I am generally quite content forgoing meat). But in the burgeoning movement to reduce one’s carbon footprint, and toward greater long-term health, my interest was slowly piqued by this one-day-a-week vegetarianism thing. After all, I do love a good eggplant parm. How hard could it be?

I’m particularly interested in a fresh start on Monday after gorging all weekend. The cheeseburger right off the grill at Saturday’s barbecue melted in my mouth (washed down by a bottle of beer), but following it with two pieces of The Pioneer Woman’s chocolate sheet cake was just unnecessary (but worth every bite!).

Monday is a new beginning. Monday speaks to me in tongues of crispy vegetables and protein sources low in saturated fat.

In his bestselling books, Michael Pollan has endorsed quasi-vegetarianism, and others are taking note. Giving up one-seventh of meat consumption (the equivalent of one day per week) is practicable, Pollan says, and I agree. I can do this.

So I mentioned it to my husband this weekend. “Honey, will you do Meatless Mondays with me?” I expected him to laugh and reply with a sarcastic, “Yeah, right.” But in a surprising moment of marital support, and without asking why, he said, “Sure. Starting tomorrow? Pasta Mondays.” I told him tomorrow we could indeed start with pasta–a win-win (easy for me to cook, even easier for him to like). But in my secret scheming, I plan to slowly intervene in this carb-lover’s lifestyle–after all, replacing a hearty protein with an empty carb is not helping anyone. Next week we’ll try a tofu or bean dish.

We’re aiming to try this for the long haul–for ourselves and for our planet. Meatless meals can be less expensive and easy to prepare. I’m all for that as a bonus. Are you on the bandwagon? Share with us.

Sarah Fullerton, content marketing & editing. Armed with a masters in journalism from Northwestern, a passion for all things cooking, and a perpetual oven mitt, Sarah loves nothing more than to camp out in the kitchen with a new recipe, interpret it creatively (a dash of this, a dash of that), and then surprise her husband and daughter, her friends, and herself with the results. She can be contacted at sarah [at] plummelo [dot] com.

I might as well come out and admit it: I love meat. I love it. I love that blissful first bite of medium-rare steak. I love the flavor a single smoky sausage gives to an entire pot of stew. I love bacon with my eggs. When I tried vegetarianism several years back, fellow veg-heads kept telling me, “Don’t worry! You’ll stop craving meat! Just give it time!” Never happened. After four years of sighing every time I caught a whiff of something on the grill, I finally admitted that my body just wanted what it wanted. Meat.

But liking meat has become a real dilemma in the past several years. The issues pile higher every day. There are the E. coli outbreaks from poor meat processing, which is affected by poor living conditions in the feedlots, which in turn comes from the food that the animals are given and how they are treated. There’s the land it takes to raise all the animals. There are the health concerns that come with diet high in meat. There are economic factors involving government subsidies and struggling farmers. It gets overwhelming very quickly, doesn’t it?

As I stand in front of the meat case at our grocery store, all these concerns shout, clamor, and fight for attention in my head. You’d think it would be an easy choice to go for the free-range, organic, locally raised meat. But it’s not.

For me, it comes down to time and money. My grocery store doesn’t sell local meat (and I’m highly suspicious of the cryovac-ed packages labeled “organic”). Buying better, more humanely raised meat means a special trip to the market downtown. I hate to admit, but that extra trip often feels like one thing too many after a long day.

And that good quality meat also costs more, which it should given its quality. But when the price difference between a package of chicken at my regular grocery store and one at a place like Whole Foods gets to be more than a few dollars, my budget just can’t handle it.

There are some solutions and compromises. By eating less meat overall, I can theoretically afford the better quality products. I also plan one big trip to the market downtown and freeze extra meat for the weeks ahead. I buy fewer steaks now and more roasts, which are more affordable and can be stretched into meals like Pulled Pork Sugo or Shredded Pork Wraps. I buy whole chickens and have taught myself how to separate them into pieces.

My husband and I caught a break recently. We both received small raises at our respective jobs–not enough to drastically change our lifestyle, but enough that there’s a little left over at the end of the month. We talked about getting iPhones or saving up for trips. In the end, we decided to put most of this extra money toward our food budget. After years of feeling our guts twist every time we stood in front of the meat counter, we’re ready to really commit to only buying local meat from farms we trust.

This is such a complicated and personal matter, I’d love to hear your thoughts! What choices have you made about eating meat?

Read about Emma Christensen.

It’s fresh. At the farmers’ markets in suburban Chicago, much of the produce is coming from farms within a couple hours’ drive. Providers at the market are picking fruits and vegetables within about 12 hours of it arriving at the market, sometimes less. This allows me to have the freshest produce possible. (Of course I neither realized nor appreciated that near where I grew up in Southwest Michigan happens to be a hot spot for growing asparagus and blueberries, among other things.)

It’s healthy! The best reason to shop the farmers’ market is because it is good for you! How can you go wrong with all that fresh, bright-colored, yummy produce? Just think of all the vitamins and minerals, and what tasty dishes you can prepare with the goods–like this Vegetable Ratatouille!

It’s cheap. The farmers’ market allows me to buy more produce for less money. I often just grab a handful of singles or a five or ten at the very most for the outing, and remarkably a pocketful of singles goes pretty far there. I love that red or green peppers are about 50 cents, not two dollars or more for the “fancier” colors.

It’s fun. Going to the market is my Saturday morning summer ritual. It’s an outing for the whole family. It’s entertainment. It’s enjoying the season and all it has to offer–the produce, the flowers, the sights and sounds. My neighborhood market often has someone playing a guitar. It’s interesting to listen to the farmers talk about what is at its peak now, or what’s coming next week.

It’s smart. It feels better shopping at the farmers’ market–giving my money directly to the source instead of paying the middleman.

The variety. I often go to the farmers’ market without a list. I just like to see what is in season and what looks good. I often come home with one of almost everything. It offers something for everyone. And many bakeries and local meat vendors also show up to my outdoor market.

No driving required. At least in my neck of the woods, farmers’ markets are neighborhood events. Part of the appeal is the leisurely Saturday morning walk, or bike ride, to browse and procure the goods. Lots of strollers, dog walkers, cyclists. An added healthy bonus.

No distractions. (No junk food.) Supermarkets definitely serve a purpose, but they can be rife with distractions: all those interior aisles containing products in boxes, bags and cans. I am often guilty of indulging my children in such nonsense, but I aspire to more. (I love meat as much as the next woman, but I recently heard something like “Eat what is a plant or grew on a plant, not what’s made in a plant.” Shopping at the farmers’ market helps me grow closer to living this motto.

No rules. I have always enjoyed the opportunity to create a meal strictly from what I find there. It is slightly more difficult now, with a husband and children, than it was when I was single, but I could still eat this way frequently: dinner consisting of a couple redskin potatoes or corn on the cob, a pile of green beans or asparagus, some berries.

Vegetarian for a day (or two). I am not a vegetarian, though I eat like one frequently. I don’t need meat daily. I am perfectly happy to eat an assortment of fresh vegetables and call it dinner. The farmers’ market not only allows that to happen, it makes it fun.

There are a few weeks still before opening day, and I simply can’t wait. Share in the comments what you look forward to about summer at the farmers’ market.

Read about Julie Hallinan.

There are times when I tried shopping the European way: buying only what I need and selecting the freshest foods that have traveled the smallest number of miles between their origin and my table. If I could make myself get used to this, I’d run into “the jicama problem” much less frequently. Inevitably, though, I find myself stumped as to what I’m going to do with the beautiful eggplant I brought home. Then I look at recipes only to find that I must go back to the store to make the eggplant dishes that appealed to me most. Now I’ve traded the jicama problem for an eggplant problem. But jicama/eggplant problems aside, it does work much better for my family if I plan first and shop later. Most of the time I am able to find the items I need.

A decade ago “going green” and buying organic or local seemed like more of a fad than anything; now these concepts are in the vernacular. Families are faced with even more product choices than ever, and the responsibilities can overwhelm the average shopper. Knowledge is responsibility, and I occasionally long for the days when I didn’t realize my mid-winter berry purchases had a true and lasting impact on so many aspects of the consumer food chain. Becoming a locavore has a certain amount of appeal, but I approach the idea with great trepidation as a New Englander used to long, cold winters, surviving on produce grown in warmer climates. I’m not really looking to become a pioneer woman.

I count myself among regular folks who are still a ways from making “eco friendly” our number one priority. I don’t know a single family that doesn’t worry about their two most precious commodities: time and money. My husband jokes that Whole Foods should be called “Whole Paycheck,” and although it is a mindset we are working to move past, he’s absolutely right. Stuff is pricey there. But it’s also the best shopping experience around with the highest quality product selection. Whole Foods’ marketing strategies make shopping with the earth and our health in mind very easy for us. I’ll pay a little extra for that inspiration. We’re on the waiting list for a local CSA farm share. I don’t know if I’m up for the challenge of being presented with a crate of produce every week and then figuring out how best to prepare and serve it. But I know I can use that bounty as the basis to plan my weekly shopping and feel good about it. I wonder if I’ll get any jicama…

On a lighter note, If you’re just in the mood to feel a little green this season, here are a few recipes that will inspire you with their verdant hue. A true vegetable hater tested the Spring Greens and Potato Soup, and he went back for a second bowl!  It would make a beautiful first course for a spring dinner party. Chocolate Cannoli Sandwich Cookies are dressed up with a sprinkling of lovely green pistachios. Lastly, when you have to buy a big bunch of cilantro for a single recipe (or are stuck with an exploded herb garden later next season) try Cilantro Pesto as a coating for simple grilled fish or shrimp or a light topping for pasta. If your vegetable drawer is overflowing with leftover arugula or flat-leaf parsley, try that instead for a different flavor.

Over Thanksgiving seven years ago, my husband suggested we get a crock pot. I have no idea where this came from since this is the man who cooks nothing but the occasional Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas roast. But I thought he was onto something. After all, we had an infant at the time and another mom friend of mine had been raving about the simplicity of dinner in the slow cooker prepared during naptime.

Next thing I knew, the slow cooker appeared under the Christmas tree, complete with a recipe book that I think contributes to the negative image of the slow cooker (read: lots of recipes using cans of soup and cheese sauce). I was a bit hesitant about embracing the crock pot, as I had a notion that they were relics leftover from the 1970s. But slow cookers seem hip now, with Williams-Sonoma selling $300 All-Clad versions and a plethora of more sophisticated cookbooks to maximize their results.

We are in prime slow cooker season, so I have been testing some recipes recently. Last weekend I made Real Simple’s Slow Cooker Smoky Pea Soup. The whole family enjoys split pea and ham soup, and true to its name, this one was really simple to make, and was tasty though it felt like cheating. Confession: technically I did cheat since I did not use a ham hock; I used a diced ham steak, but the results are equally good. It also provided enjoyable lunch leftovers for a few days.

Speaking of cheating, here is my favorite slow cooker trick: pulled pork. We invited some good friends over for a casual Sunday dinner a few weeks ago. I decided to make pulled pork in the slow cooker. I literally placed a boneless pork loin roast in the slow cooker and covered it with a bottle of barbecue sauce, put the lid on and let it go for about 7 hours. Once cooked, I shredded it, tossed it in the sauce, and served it on yummy, oversized pretzel rolls. Our friends raved. I had to confess it was a complete cheater’s meal. This dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, roasted sweet potato wedges and a green salad required literally a 5-item purchase at Trader Joe’s: the meat, the barbecue sauce, the rolls, a bag of sweet potatoes and a bag of salad!

Maybe next time I shouldn’t confess just how easy the slow cooker makes my life and just let everyone think I’ve been slaving over a hot stove all day.

Photo credits:

More often than not, I come home from the kindergarten pick-up at 11:30 and start the scavenger hunt for lunch. I am usually so hungry and know it will take a few minutes, so I start nibbling on something while I make my daughter’s lunch and figure out what I am going to eat. I grab a Diet Coke and reach for my old standby, pretzels. This gets me nowhere, really… because then I am thinking “what goes with pretzels and Diet Coke?”

My lunch often ends up as a veggie burger or a wrap of some kind–maybe turkey and avocado or tuna salad, maybe leftover beans and rice. Almost anything tastes good in a tortilla. (I much prefer wraps to sandwiches.)

I am now trying, when possible, to actually plan lunch. Leftovers from the previous night’s dinner are often a good choice. Otherwise I go to the wrap.

On occasion though, I have a friend over for lunch. This really requires planning. I have a couple of ideas in my mental stash for when I need an above average lunch.

One of my favorites is chicken salad, which–you guessed it–I make into a wrap. My favorite is Cranberry Almond Chicken Salad. Using a rotisserie chicken as the base is my preference, but when that’s not possible, I cook and dice breasts. In a real pinch I have found canned will suffice (I like the Kirkland premium chunk chicken from Costco). When possible, of course, I make enough chicken salad to last two lunches.

Another of my favorite lunches that I have been known to serve to company is a grain-based salad. If I am not entertaining, I make a big bowl of it to last a few days. If you take lunch to work or school, these salads travel easily in a container as well.

One of my favorites is barley with black eyed peas, tomatoes, diced red or yellow peppers and corn tossed with a lime vinegarette.

Quinoa and wheat berry salads are also among my favorites. I have made all of these (see box) and several other variations.

While there is some prep time required, especially for the wheat berries (which must simmer for almost an hour), I find these dishes completely worth the time. Not only are they quite nutritious, but definitely hearty, and I have also found they can easily impress a friend.

Girlfriends will find any excuse to get together. And what better way to spend a cold Saturday than with food and friends. In order to justify our absence from our husbands and kids, we decided we’d better find a way to benefit them as well.

And girlfriends trust each other. Girlfriends share their opinions about everything–recipes and food are no exception. Most women I know are always looking for their next batch of great recipes, so we decided to get together and test some out.

The ultimate goal was to come home with four meals to enjoy throughout the week (or stash in the freezer for a busy night).

We accomplished several things during our three hours together this weekend: quality time, trying new recipes, and preparing meals to take home for our families. Here is how it went.

I invited 5 girlfriends who, like me, are busy moms who are into cooking and trying new recipes but are short on time. Six people was the perfect size. The dads planned on staying home for some quality time with the little ones.

I looked through my recipes on Plummelo for a few important criteria: little to no cooking on prep day; highly freezeable; no more than about 10 ingredients each; and using relatively inexpensive ingredients. We narrowed it down to 4. We wanted to start out with an attainable goal.

I saved these 4 recipes to My Recipes on Plummelo and emailed them to my friends so they could save them into their recipe boxes as well. I put the recipes into My Plans and then into My Shopping List.

Here was the part where Plummelo really saved the day in this planning process: Once the recipes were in my shopping list, Plummelo adjusted the servings for me!

For 6 people, we needed everything times 6 (for a grand total of a lot of food). The recipe showed number of servings as 4, so I entered 24 (4 x 6), and the Plummelo shopping list automatically changed all the quantities for me (for example, 1 1/2 cups of ricotta became 9 cups of ricotta).

I then hit “Email Shopping List” on Plummelo and sent the combined list to my friends. We divvied up the shopping by section of the grocery store (which was also easy because the Plummelo shopping list is divided by category, such as Meat, Produce), and each went grocery shopping on our own schedule and planned to arrive with the assigned items.

One friend and I hit Costco for all the meat, and the others went on their respective treasure hunts. I was surprised at how little effort went into the shopping when we divided and conquered.

The day of, I packed it up the food and a few essentials (including my favorite knife), ready to take to the hosting friend’s house. We allowed 3 hours for our cooking adventure, with some time built in for girl talk and munching on freshly baked muffins.

We started out with the Chicken Marbella. One team of two trimmed the chicken thighs, another team minced garlic (of course, with the garlic gadget!), and another team measured spices, olives, capers, and prunes. In no time our chicken was marinating in the bowl, and we divided the massive quantity into 6 Ziploc freezer bags for each family to pull out on the designated night.

The routine went like this for the remaining recipes. Chopping and dicing, dividing and conquering (and washing some dishes in between). Meal prep is much more fun when it is organized in advance and shared with good friends. It’s also more fun digging into a huge bowl of ground turkey when wearing plastic gloves! We had a lot of laughs about food favorites and not-so-favorites, cooking blunders, and each other’s techniques, and fed each other bites of blueberry muffin while we worked. It didn’t seem like work at all.

It took us two and a half hours and $37.50 per family (that’s less than $10 per meal) to make 4 delicious meals that are ready for our loved ones to enjoy. Economies of scale definitely pay off!

Now we each have 4 new recipes in our repertoire and 4 new meals for the week. And after receiving a big thank you from more than one of the husbands, I know we have a hall pass for another girls’ afternoon out.

Try planning a cooking day with your friends. Let us know how it goes.

It’s a habit that may be inherited from my time working in public libraries; I hold a special place in my heart for order. But long before I had even heard about the Dewey Decimal System, a much more instinctive way of cataloging was becoming my first standard: ROY G BIV. I organize my closet, my bookshelf, and even my office supplies by color. And this is also how I organize my refrigerator.

My friends tease me about this habit every time they come over. But there is a method to my madness: by categorizing according to content, I can balance my diet, whip up a great meal on a whim, and be sure that nothing ever goes to waste.

It’s an oft repeated maxim that the fully balanced plate should have representatives from as many color families as possible. That’s because different colored foods tend to hold different nutrients. Red, for example (rhubarb, beets, tomatoes, red chard–did you know that was a type of beet?) offers essential vitamins that promote blood function and healthier hearts. Yellow and orange fruits and vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, and squash give us vitamin C and, unsurprisingly, beta carotene.

Dark or leafy greens such as kale and broccoli are chock full of vitamins A and C, which have been linked to vision and strong, healthy bones. And by grouping all my protein together (tofu, eggs, cheese, and occasionally fresh fish), it becomes easier to be sure that I’m getting enough fuel to my muscles to keep them sharp and active throughout the day.

My cooking habits vary widely, depending on how late a day has ended. Sometimes (ah, weekends!), I can spend an hour or two preparing a complex dish I’ve looked forward to preparing. Most of the time, though, I come home and have to prepare something quickly with what I have on hand. Organization by color allows me to spot the brussels sprouts nearing the end of their usefulness, or the tofu I bought two weeks ago and forgot about. That momentary spark gleaned from my cursory, hungry glance into the fridge will often decide what I’m going to make effortlessly, and from there an easy, tasty meal is usually less than half an hour away.

When I’m cooking this way, I love meals that combine many tastes and textures without an overwhelming amount of effort. Single skillet meals are the perfect answer: you know everything that went into them is balanced, so there are no sides or extras to worry about. When they’re done your only task is to sit back and enjoy. Halibut with Spicy Squash and Tomatoes is perfect for that. I will usually throw in two handfuls of a dark leafy vegetable along with the other veggies. That way you have protein and the colors red, orange, and green–not to mention a few items from last week’s grocery list that have been put to good use. You can check out the full recipe, along with some other colorful one-pot wonders, at my Plummelo profile. Enjoy!

Photos by Adwoa Gyimah-Brempong

They are right.

I’m not eating beets. I’m not eating cabbage. I’m not eating swiss chard. I am definitely not eating sardines. But I am eating cinnamon, pomegranate juice, dried plums, frozen blueberries, and canned pumpkin. That’s a start, right?

Back to beets. Beets have always been a very mysterious vegetable to me. I didn’t grow up eating them. Not that I’m one to garden (I live on a lovely patch of pavement in the city), but beets aren’t something I’ve ever grown or harvested myself. And how do you cook them? I know they are absolutely sweet and delicious–possibly nature’s sweetest vegetable–once I can get my hands on them (and they stain, so watch out!). But unfortunately, when it comes to beets and other such vegetables, intimidation gets the best of me and I’m usually afraid to attempt cooking them.

But in the spirit of healthy eating and conquering my cooking fears (see a prior post on this topic), I decided to give beets a try. I had collected a little bit of vague advice from a friend. I thought the hard part was actually getting myself to purchase them at the store. Once I got them home it would be cake.

(Humorous anecdote: The leaves were so long the whole beets didn’t fit in the standard size plastic vegetable bag at the grocery store, but, like a carton of eggs, I managed to babysit the unruly creatures all the way to the check-out line, gently place them on the rolling conveyor belt, and then–wham!–the otherwise very kind check-out bagger folded my beet stems to squeeze them into my reusable shopping bag! With a worried smile, I informed him that I wanted to photograph those beets. He rushed off to get another bunch for me.)

I thought maybe it was as easy as chopping off the stems and leaves and putting them in a preheated oven. I decided to make a few other vegetables at the same time, and threw in a sweet potato and a regular potato on the same cookie sheet. Maybe my attention wasn’t focused–I was just winging it. I pulled out the sizzling beets, oozing sticky juice, and let them rest for a while. They seemed tender when I pierced them.

I served them with our chicken dinner, proud of my accomplishment. But I needed a steak knife to cut them. I hadn’t cooked them long enough.

What did I learn? One, I am now capable of bringing home even the most intimidating vegetables. And two, I am now even more determined to give them another try–this time letting them cook until they are really done. A recipe like this Orange and Beet Salad would be a good start for me.

Are you eating beets? If you are a beginner when it comes to trying new vegetables, many stores, such as Trader Joe’s, sell beets pre-cooked in the refrigerated section.

Top photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/craigcloutier/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Second photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noshha/ / CC BY-SA 2.0