madeleine lumley: clean eating

I took this super fresh salad along to Christmas lunch (along with a mean vegan potato salad, but that's for another post) and was then requested to make it again a few days later for a dinner with some family friends. Both times it went down a treat. It's the perfect side dish, but also so satisfying as a main. The currants add bites of sweetness, the brown rice and quinoa combination is foolproof, the herbs provide so much bite and flavour, and the dressing is super simple and light; get amongst it pals. Also, I got a lot of my ingredients in bulk from The Source (they have multiple stores all around Australia) which is a great way of saving money, time and packaging!

What you need:

1/2 cup uncooked brown rice
1/2 cup uncooked tri-coloured quinoa (or any coloured quinoa tbh)
1 tin of chickpeas
1/2 to 2/3 of a cup of currants
1 carrot, peeled and grated
A big handful (or two) of chopped up shallots/spring onions
Parsley
Coriander
Mint
(I also used a little bit of dill because we had some in the fridge which added a nice flavour kick, but don't use too much of it bc it's quite an overwhelming flavour)

Freshly squeezed juice of 1 orange
Freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar

What you need to do:

Cook up your rice according to the instructions on the packet (rice + water + boil + drain etc)
Cook up your quinoa according to the instructions
Drain your rice + quinoa
Mix them together in your salad bowl with the chickpeas, currants, grated carrot, shallots, and all your herbs.
Add your orange juice, lemon juice and vinegar, and mix it all together. Simples!

Grain free, refined sugar free and vegan carrot, orange and ginger cookies with crunchy buckwheat and cacao bits! These cookies. They're addictive. I'm warning you now. But they're also ridiculously good for you, so it's all fine. In fact, I wouldn't judge you if you ate them for breakfast… I might just join you. But aside from that, they're the perfect mid-afternoon snack to tide you over til dinner, the perfect I-need-a-treat-with-my-cup-of-tea snack, the perfect damn-it-it's-only-11:30am-and-I'm-ready-for-lunch snack, or the perfect middle-of-your-shift-at-work snack when you just need SOMETHING to nibble on (which is how these came about…). There are so many wonderful flavours in these cookies - a little bit nutty from the buckwheat, a little bite from the freshly grated ginger, fruity-sweetness from the orange zest and juice, little bites of deep, earthy chocolate from the raw cacao, plus they're a little bit carrot cake-y! They kind of taste like a muesli cookie except minus the muesli… Does that make sense? Just try them, you'll understand.

Ingredients (note: unfortunately I'm a very erratic experimental baker and don't measure my ingredients perfectly, so use your discretion to decide whether to add more or less of anything… eek)

1 and a 1/4 of a cup of buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
A teeny pinch of sea salt
1/3 cup of raw buckwheat groats
1/2 cup of cacao nibs
1 tablespoon of coconut sugar (this is totally optional, depending on how sweet you like your cookies!)
1 grated carrot (about a cup's worth)

1/4 cup of maple syrup/agave syrup/honey if you're not strict vegan
1 tablespoon of soft coconut oil
Juice of half an orange (just eat the other half, nom)
1 tsp freshly grated ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and grease a tray (I use coconut oil to do this) and/or line with baking paper.

Mix the buckwheat flour, salt, baking powder, optional coconut sugar, buckwheat groats and cacao nibs all together in a bowl. Add the carrot and mix.

In a separate bowl, combine the coconut oil, maple syrup/honey/agave, and orange juice, then add the grated ginger and cinnamon. Add this to the flour mixture and stir until combined. Here, I actually added an extra tablespoon or so of buckwheat flour because I thought the mixture was little too wet, but judge it for yourself. The mixture should still be reasonably wet and sticky!

Dollop tablespoons of the mixture onto the tray, shape them a little if you wish, and then pop them into the oven for 15 minutes! Devour, and try not to burn your fingers when they're fresh out of the oven and you juST CAN'T HELp yourself.

Middle-Eastern inspired brown rice, quinoa & chickpea salad

Vegan carrot, orange and ginger cookies

Older Posts

Search