Quinoa and Pomegranate Salad

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From The Clean Eating Mama. This was so good! I will definitely make it again! It made quite a lot so there's plenty of left overs - I can hardly wait for tomorrow when I can eat it again!

I made some small changes - I used fresh parsley in stead of dried and I since I love feta I decided to double the amount. I also doubled the pomegranate - I have never cooked with pomegranate before so I didn't know how much I would need. The original recipe called for ½ cup but I decided to use the whole fruit and that ended up being a full cup. I didn't have any poultry or Italian seasoning but google informed me both of them were mostly sage, parsley and some other herbs so I added some thyme and onion powder and more sage to make up for that.

Serves 3-4

Ingredients:
½ cup Quinoa (I used black quinoa but red or white would work just as good - the black added some nice colour contrast though)
1 cup water
1 Tbs chopped fresh parsley
1 Tbs sage
½ Tbs thyme
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp salt
1/4 cup frozen peas
1/4 cup finely chopped carrots
3 Tbs toasted pine nuts
½ - 1 cup pomegranate arils
6 Tbs dried cranberries
4 Tbs feta crumbles
1 - 2 Tbs chopped fresh basil
drizzle olive oil to taste
salt and pepper to taste

Prepare and cook the quinoa as the directions state. Add parsley, sage, thyme, salt and onion powder to the water. Cook until all water has been evaporated, approximately 20 minutes. With 5 minutes left add peas and carrots.
Let cool in a large mixing bowl. After it has cooled stir in the pomegranate, feta, pine nuts, cranberries and basil. Drizzle some olive oil over. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve with salmon or chicken.

Crab Stuffed Mushrooms

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This was inspired by The Rookie Chef. As usual I made some small changes - dill instead of chives (didn't have any at home) and a dash of lemon juice. Or more like a whole boat load of lemon juice - the top of the bottle fell off and suddenly my crab sticks were swimming in lemon juice. I managed to pour out most of it but the lemon flavour was still very strong. Not that I mind - I love lemon. Even J liked these (he's not usually a fan of mushrooms) so it was a big hit.

Ingredients:
8 mushrooms
4 oz (half block) of cream cheese
4 sticks of imitation crab legs.
dill
1 tsp lemon juice
Garlic powder
Black pepper
shredded Parmesan cheese
Bread crumbs (I omitted these)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F (175'C). Cut out the stem and a little bit more of the mushroom to create a little hole to fill. Chop up the crab into pretty small pieces and throw into a bowl with softened cream cheese. Mix well. Now add in some dill, garlic powder and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice (or more!). Throw in some black pepper and some shredded Parmesan cheese too. After really mixing this all up, scoop and place into your mushroom caps. Bake for 15 minutes or until mixture is heated through.

Mom's quick raspberry mousse

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This is something my mom makes for dessert all the time. I think she got the original recipe from ICA Maxi but as with everything she's mom-ized it over the years. It can be done with almost any frozen fruit - raspberries, mangoes, blackberries, blueberries or a mix of any of these. In the picture it's half raspberries and half mango.

Yield: 4

Ingredients:
250 ml whippable vanilla cream
250 g frozen fruits
2 - 3 gelatin sheets
1 Tbs lemon juice

Directions:
Soak the gelatin in cold water for 5 minutes or according to the instructions on the package. Drain and then melt the gelatin in the lemon juice. Add lemon/gelatin to the vanilla cream. Whip vanilla cream fluffy. Add the frozen (it's really important that the fruit is still frozen) fruit and stir. Divide in 4 serving glasses or in a bigger serving dish. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours but preferably longer.