Friday quickie

Funny how it feels like the end of a five day working week, although technically I've only been to work for two of those five days. But still, every Friday deserves to be celebrated with good food, enjoyed while chillaxin' on the sofa and watching Gilmore Girls. One of those shows you don't want to watch if you are trying to lose weight, as they just keep on eating. All the time. And still stay looking like stick insects. Of course, analysing it more closely, you actually never see them eating anything, apart from taking a tiny little nibble from that huge pile of pizzas, burgers and chinese takeaway. Then they just leave the rest. Which of course explains the whole stick insect thing...


Well, not that I would ever aspire to being a stick insect anyways, but I did end up doing a salad this Friday. I stumbled across this recipe when I was browsing Pinterest yesterday. Actually, I'm not quite sure how I managed to end up with a salad recipe, as I was browsing baking ideas and cupcakes. Oh yes indeed, now I remember, I ended up following a link to these maple-bacon doughnuts and then looked around this wonderful blog called How Sweet It Is, and stumbled upon the salad recipe. It was perfect, because I had some left over watermelon and left over feta which needed to be used up. And I love quinoa. And I thought I would try to eat something healthy. Of course, I followed it up by eating half my weight in chocolate, so I don't think having a salad made much impact on the healthiness of my diet today. But I loved the salad recipe, as I would never have thought of combining watermelon and feta. I've only made a few minor changes, otherwise it's pretty close to the original I linked to above.


Watermelon and feta salad with quinoa (serves 2):
85g quinoa (dry weight)
1/2 veggie stock cube
400g watermelon
30g basil
100g feta 
1 lemon

The howto:
Cook quinoa with the stock cube according to the instructions on the pack. Let cool. Chop watermelon and basil, combine with cool quinoa and crumble in the feta. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and toss. I served with prawns I fried in a hot pan for a few seconds, as they needed to be used up. Works fine on it's own without the prawns as well.


The verdict:
The salad is very refreshing, really great for summer. Too bad it's raining and miserably cold outside... I could imagine eating this outside in the sunshine. Of course for that, I would have to move somewhere where the sun actually shines. The UK right now feels like one of those places where the sun don't shine, if you catch my drift... Ok, so back to the salad. I love sweet and savoury combinations, so the combination of watermelon and feta was really appealing to me. And I wish there was some way to transfer scents online, the combination of watermelon, basil and lemon is just heavenly, and still lingers in my apartment as I write this. Another recipe I will be sure to return to.