Quinoa, Broccoli & Roast Sweet Potato Salad

We closed the bed & breakfast down this Sunday, two months earlier than normal, as we are due to have our 2nd baby in the next week or so. Needless to say things have been fairly hectic and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that things will get even more hectic within the next few days and indeed weeks!! Hence the lull in blog posts! Pregnancy coupled with running a B&B, all whilst running after a toddler, has left little time for new recipes for the blog. So here today I am taking advantage of the 'rest' time I have allowed for myself and decided it was time to try out the red quinoa that has been sitting in the cupboard for the last month!

With the pregnancy I did relax the dieting a bit, and was in full on carb mode! But now that the end is in sight I've started to think about dishes for my post baby diet, when I will be tryng to shift the odd pound or 50 than I have gained! (I rarely said NO to leftover B&B baking treats). For this reason this dish is an extremely healthy salad which can be used as either a side or bulked up with roast chicken for a substantial low fat, low carb, high protein meal. 

Ingredients

• 100g Red Quinoa (Cooked according to packet instructions)
• 4 Spring Onions, diced
• 3-4 florets of broccoli, chopped small
• 1 medium sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 2 tsp of garam masala powder
• 1 tsp of olive oil

Method

1. Boil the broccoli for 3-4 minutes, then submerge in cold water (to retain the bright green colour). This short method ensures that the min. amount of nutrients are lost in the cooking process.
2. Boil the sweet potato cubes in cold water for 7-8 minutes. Drain well. 
3. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
4. Spread the sweet potato cubes out onto a baking tray, drizzle over the olive oil and also the garam masala powder. 
5. Bake the sweet potato cubes for 15 minutes in the oven.
6. Finally, combine the cooked quinoa, diced spring onions, broccoli florets and the sweet potato cubes together.

This is an extremely versatile recipe, adding a feta cheese, goats cheese or halloumi would work really well here.

I had a harrisa roast chicken as an accompanients, which complemented the salad really well.