Meatless Monday: A Salad for Every Diet

Last week I promised everyone I would post a recipe rather than a rant this week, and I always do my best to keep my promises. So here goes… 

The heat is rising, and outdoor festivities are filling up the calendar — two great reasons to try out this easy, make-ahead recipe, inspired by a serving suggestion on the back of a bag of Trader Joe’s Organic Red Quinoa. 

Black Bean, Roasted Corn & Avocado Salad on a Bed of Quinoa

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup Red Quinoa
• 1- 15 oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 2 cups corn kernels, toasted by sautéing in a lightly-greased cast iron pan
• 1 large avocado, cut into 1/2 inch pieces 
• 1 pint grape tomatoes, cut into halves
• 1 small red onion, finely diced
• juice of 1 large lime
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper
• a bunch of your favorite salad greens

PREPARATION

Prepare the quinoa.

• Rinse the quinoa with cold water and drain.  [This is a very important first step. Quinoa that is not rinsed first will have a bitter taste.] Place the quinoa, along with 2 cups of broth or water into a 1-1/2 to 2 cup saucepan. [I added one Not-Chick’n vegetable bouillon cube to 2 cups of cold water.] Bring to a boil. Reduce to simmer, cover, and cook until all liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, toss with 1/4 cup olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste.

While the quinoa is cooking, prepare the salad.

• Combine the beans and vegetables in a large bowl.
• Make a dressing by combining lime juice with olive oil in a ration of 1:3. [Adjust to your taste.]
• Pour over the vegetables. Stir gently until all the ingredients are moistened.
• Wash and spin dry your favorite greens. Tear and place into salad bowl(s) as the base.
• Spoon quinoa onto the greens.
• Top with the mixed vegetables.

Colorful. Delicious. Nutritious. A complete summer meal or a hearty potluck dish in under an hour. When served atop greens, the salad makes six very generous servings.

Vegetarians and vegans will love that this dish is high in protein without meat. Vegans will appreciate that it is dairy-free. Paleo dieters should be happy that high-protein, low-carb quinoa is the salad base rather than rice or pasta. Quinoa is also gluten free. A dish for almost everyone, and certainly appropriate for a summer Meatless Monday!

FYI I was happy to discover that Trader Joes' Red Quinoa was not in conflict with any of my Buycott campaigns. Read about Buycott here.

And now for an update on the CT GMO labeling bill that had me ranting last week: In a surprise turn of events, GMO labeling supporters are now celebrating. On Saturday, the CT Senate voted unanimously to support a compromise bill, supported by House leadership, the governor, AND GMO labeling advocates! 

CT is likely to become the first state in the country to pass a GMO labeling law. 

The new bill has a more reasonable trigger clause, but more importantly NO LONGER INCLUDES the exemption for farmers grossing less than 1.5 million dollars. You can read the new bill here. The protest previously called for today has become a party to thank the legislators! Congratulations, Tara Littman-Cook and GMO Free CT.

Good eats! Good news! 

Have a great week.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: A New App for the Ethical Shopper

Do you use a Smartphone?

Do you care passionately about GMO labeling, or Gay Rights, or the Environment, or …?

If you can answer “yes” to both questions, I have just the app for you!

Buycott is a recently-released, free app developed over a period of 16 months by Ivan Pardo, a 26-year-old, free-lance programmer working in Los Angeles. It is available as a download for both Android and iPhone.

Buycott’s home page states, “A buycott is the opposite of a boycott. Buycott helps you to organize your everyday consumer spending so that it reflects your principles.”

Here is how it works. 

One you have installed the app, enroll in at least one of the user-created campaigns listed in the app by description and number of members. 

Then, scan the barcode of any product you have in your cupboard or are considering purchasing in a store. Buycott will try to determine what the product is and what company owns it. If it is in the system, Buycott will trace the product’s ownership and immediately tell you whether or not this product is in conflict with any of the campaigns you have joined.

I joined the Demand GMO Labeling campaign with 59,100+ members (currently the top campaign). A number of companies have been pumping massive amounts of money to fighting GMO labeling legislation; this campaign starts with a list of all companies that donated more than $150,000 to oppose California’s Prop 37, which, if enacted, would have required labeling of GMO food in that state.

By scanning their barcodes, I learned that two of the three cereal brands in my house – Kashi and Cascadian Farms were in conflict, while the third, Nature’s Path, was not. I was happy to discover that Annie’s Mac & Cheese, my quick-fix guilty pleasure, was also conflict-free. 

“Family Tree” illustrates the corporate lineage of your scanned product all the way up to its parent company. With this tool, I learned that Cascadian Farms is a subsidiary of Small Planet Food, which is in turn owned by General Mills, and that General Mills donated $1,135,300 to the “No on Prop 37 Campaign.” That is why buying my favorite Cascadian Farms granola now poses an ethical dilemma for me.

Buycott is an awesome app. For each of the companies whose barcodes are in the database, crowdsourced contact info (phone number, URL, corporate Facebook page, and Twitter handle), Wikipedia entry, and location map are listed, making it easy for you to let your voice heard. By simply hitting the Share button, you can tell all your friends what you have found out. 

Your timeline stores your campaigns and any barcodes you have scanned.

This is a participatory app. Users are asked to submit the names of products the app does not recognize. Any user who cannot find a campaign to suit her interests is encouraged to start her own.

Developer Pardo was quoted in Forbes, “I don’t want to push any single point of view with the app,” said Pardo. “For me, it was critical to allow users to create campaigns because I don’t think it’s Buycott’s role to tell people what to buy. We simply want to provide a platform that empowers consumers to make well-informed purchasing decisions.”

Buycott is an exciting tool for the socially-responsible consumer who wants to vote with her wallet. And, it's free. 

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).