One thing I know for sure is, we are what we eat.
The food we put into our bodies on a daily basis will either build health, or tear our health down and the food we eat, provides us with one of the simple pleasures of life, three times a day.
I love food, but I do not love spending hours toiling in the kitchen or striding through the aisles of the supermarket looking for obscure ingredients. The recipes I love and make most often are quick, packed with flavour, simple to follow and use easy to find ingredients. How can you make eating delicious healthy food a habit if it becomes a challenging chore, day after day, after day? That would be exhausting and not delightful!
I was delighted to come across a recipe called: Jennifer Anistons’ Salad. Apparently, she ate this salad every single day she worked on the set for Friends. Here is a woman with consistency in her healthy habits!
I have never been a huge fan of Friends and the back catalogue of episodes is too overwhelming to consider watching, at this late stage in the game, but I am a fan of this easy, delicious and nutritionally dense salad!
Let’s look at why…
1. This salad is quick and easy to make! I loaded a podcast onto my phone one Tuesday evening, and assembled all of the ingredients and the dressing into a plastic container, in 20 minutes flat. I had a deeply nourishing salad to eat through the rest of the week.
2. It is forgiving. I did not have the perfect ingredients for this salad, (no cucumber in my refrigerator) but I did have additional herbs and a pomegranate. You can riff off the original recipe with what you love or what you have on hand, to make a different delicious salad each time
3. It is absolutely packed with flavour. I loaded my version with three types of herbs and added health promoting ground cumin to the lemon and olive oil dressing for a warm and spicy flavour.
4. The version I made is packed with protein. Chickpeas, pistachios, quinoa and feta cheese combine to create a dish with about 14g of protein per serving. Protein helps us to retain muscle mass and prevent weight gain in during peri-menopause and quinoa is a complete protein, containing all nine essential amino acids the body cannot create on its own.
5. This salad is packed with fibre. Fibre is the midlife womans best friend, helping to manage midlife hormones, supporting heart health and reducing the risk of weight gain around the middle. I added the seeds of a pomegranate to amp up the fibre and provide juicy jewels of flavour. in each mouthful.
6. This salad is versatile. Use as a side dish to chicken or fish, eat as a complete meal with avocado on the top or try it for breakfast as below, with boiled eggs and avocado. Nourishing and filling, this salad stores well and can be pulled out of the refrigerator throughout the week to add nutrition to a meal.
Ingredients
1 cup uncooked quinoa
2 cups water
1 bunch parsley finely chopped
1 bunch mint finely chopped
1 bunch cilantro finely chopped (Optional)
1/2 red onion finely chopped
1/2 cup pistachios
1x14oz can chickpeas drained
1x14oz can pitted black olives drained and halved
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp ground cumin
200g goat or cow feta cheese
2 lemons juiced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped cucumber (optional)
1 Pomegranate seeded
Instructions
Wash the quinoa under running water until it ceases to make soapy bubbles.
Cook the quinoa in the water in a pan with a lid until all the water is absorbed. Remove the lid and fluff up the quinoa with a fork.
Meanwhile, drain the can of chickpeas and drain and halve the olives. Add to a large bowl or container.
Toss in the pistachios and finely chopped red onion.
Finely chop the herbs and add to the bowl or container as if you are making tabbouleh.
Add the cooked and fully drained quinoa
Add the juice of two lemons to the ingredients, 1/4 cup olive oil, the salt and the cumin. Toss all the ingredients together to combine making the dressing in the salad.
Chop or crumble the feta cheese into the salad and add the cucumber or pomegranate seeds if using.
Gently stir the salad together to combine.