Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Pomegranate Pumpkin Dressing

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Achieve with Athena

Yesterday during our afternoon off from work, Tim and I got crafty in the kitchen. We received giant sweet potatoes in our CSA last week, and we also had a ton of pomegranate seeds left over from last week’s food prep, so we wanted to make a lunch for the week that used both. Here’s what we came up with!

Roasted Sweet Potato Salad with Pomegranate Pumpkin Dressing

Serves 4-5 as a main meal or 6-8 as a side dish

Ingredients

For the salad:

6 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into one inch cubes
Half a small red onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, diced (or a quart container of mini peppers)
1/3 cup pumpkin seeds
1/3 cup pomegranate seeds
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

For the dressing:

6 tbsp pomegranate juice
4 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp pumpkin seed oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
Salt and ground pepper, to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
In a bowl, toss the cut up sweet potatoes in 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. Season with salt and pepper, then transfer to two large baking sheets. Roast in the oven for around 30 minutes, or until sweet potatoes are tender. Make sure to check on them halfway through and flip so the sweet potato cooks evenly.
While the sweet potatoes are cooking, make your dressing. In a medium size bowl, whisk together the pomegranate juice, red wine vinegar, pumpkin seed oil, maple syrup, and salt and pepper.
When the sweet potatoes are done, transfer to a large bowl, and add the onion, pepper, pumpkin seeds, pomegranate seeds, and cilantro.
Pour the dressing mixture over the salad and mix well. Make sure to pour slowly and taste as you go to avoid over-dressing. I recommend pour and tasting about 2-3 different times.
Top with the remaining 1/4 cup pomegranate seeds, and enjoy!

You might be thinking that pomegranate and pumpkin aren’t flavors that go well together, but when you take one awesome flavor and combine it with another awesome flavor… yeah. Double awesomeness. Using pumpkin seed oil in the dressing provides a nice contrast against the sweetness of the sweet potatoes, pomegranate seeds, and pomegranate juice. The diced peppers, pomegranate seeds, and pumpkin seeds add a nice crunch, and of course, I like anything with cilantro in it. For those of you who don’t like cilantro, you could sub in parsley, and for those of you who might not have pumpkin seed oil at home, feel free to use olive oil instead (may have to add a little more).

I love how colorful and nutritious this dish is, and I can’t wait to have it for lunches this week! If you make this, snap some pretty pictures and post to social media. Would love to see your versions!

Readers, let’s chat! What’s your favorite flavor? A-sweet potato, B-pomegranate, or C-pumpkin?!

Luckily, this dish doesn’t make you decide. 😉

Warm Farro Salad with Orange and Cranberries

Posted on December 17, 2014 by Achieve with Athena

Good morning, and Happy Hanukkah to any F&F readers celebrating this week!

I have a new recipe to share with you today.

Warm Farro Salad with Orange and Cranberries

Serves 3-4 as a meal or 6 as a side

Ingredients

1 cup farro, uncooked
2 cups low sodium vegetable broth
1/2 cup dried cranberries
2-3 oranges
1/3 cup raw and unsalted pecan halves
2-3 tbsp fresh parsley, to taste
1 tbsp pumpkin seed oil
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp real maple syrup, agave, or honey
Salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Bring the farro and broth to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer until farro is tender and water is absorbed.
While the farro is cooking, chop your parsley and peel and chop your oranges.
When the farro is done, drain any excess liquid, and then mix in all remaining ingredients.
Serve warm, and enjoy!

This dish is quickly becoming a go to meal in our home because it’s super easy to make, and it also travels well. The orange flavor really adds a nice citrus component to the dish and pairs well against the grainy texture of the farro. The red cranberries and the green parsley also make this salad a nice festive addition to your holiday table this month! If and when blood oranges (Tim’s FAVORITE) ever hit the stores this season, I will definitely be making this salad again using blood oranges instead.

For those with nut allergies, try substituting a seed such as sunflower seeds for the crunchy component. Even though I enjoy this warm right after it’s been made, it tastes good cold as leftovers right out of the fridge too. Hope you guys like this one!

–Let’s chat–
What festive salads are you making this season? Do you prefer your whole grain salads warm or cold? What are your favorite seasonal items right now?

For those who entered my Nutcracker ticket giveaway, I emailed the winner (Deanna) on Monday. Thank you all for entering!

Apple Picking: Meal and Snack Ideas to Use Up Apples

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Achieve with Athena

Tim and I have gone apple picking every single year that we’ve been together. We went during year one, and over the years it has become one of our favorite fall traditions.

We’ll switch up what orchard we go to, but I’d say we primarily stick with Smolak Farms in Andover, Honey Pot Hill Orchards in Stow, and Shelburne Farm in Stow. This year we actually split our apple picking excursion between both Honey Pot Hill and Shelburne, since they are 5 minutes away from each other. We did all our picking at Honey Pot first. After we finished picking apples, we wanted a little snack, but the line was SO long for apple cider donuts that we decided to drive down the street to Shelburne instead. Shelburne Farm has my favorite little farm stand store and food options anyways, so it worked out perfectly!

For the record, that’s pumpkin ice cream you see me eating there. So delicious! We left the farm with cheese, apple cider, some pumpkins for the house, and some pumpkin fudge to have as a treat during the week.

Like most people do when they go apple picking, we had a ton of apples to use up over the next few weeks. We tried to get creative with meals and snacks so our apples wouldn’t go to waste, and I thought it would make for a fun blog post.

I’m all for having an apple as a snack or cutting one up and eating it with some nut butter spread on top, but here are some meal and snack ideas to keep things interesting:

Roasted pork with caramelized apples

Ground turkey stuffed apples

Apple and quinoa stuffed acorn squash

Apple and almond quinoa salad

Kale and apple salads. The picture below shows pears, which we also picked during our apple picking day! We’ve also been getting both apples and pears in our CSA too, and a go to salad format for us is greens (kale, lettuce, etc.) + grain (quinoa, barley, farro) + fruit (chopped apples or pears) + nuts (slivered almonds, walnuts, pecans) + cheese (feta, goat, etc.). I just didn’t have a picture to share of my apple version.

Grain free apple cinnamon chia muffins

Lightened up apple crisp

Crock pot apple cinnamon oatmeal. My favorite mix-ins are either dried cranberries or raisins and walnuts!

Apple cinnamon protein pancakes

Apple pie smoothies. To make these, I threw 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, 1 apple (peeled, cored, and sliced), 1 tbsp almond butter, 1 frozen banana, 1 tbsp cinnamon, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 cup kale, and a handful of ice in the blender. If you make this, you might have to add water as needed to mix it all up. It looks disgusting, but I promise it doesn’t taste like it looks! Good post workout snack.