Recipe: Franken-Salad and Turkey Sausage With Quinoa

This is the first post in what I hope will be a steady supply of recipes that are good for the body — and ergo, great for orgasms!

In one of my recent posts, I revealed that eating isn’t really a big thing for me. Because I no longer eat for emotion, eating a meal is more about getting nutrition than getting an emotional high. I also don’t like cooking when I’m home alone, as I am tonight — I always prefer cooking for other people. And I wasn’t planning on starting this thread so soon, but tonight’s dish-on-the-fly inspired me enough to post it so you can see how throwing together a healthy meal can be done rather simply and quickly…. I didn’t even dread cooking tonight.

Now, this isn’t one of those fancy foodie blogs, so I don’t have lots of pictures.

For my Franken-Salad, I used some left over ingredients plus some freshly chopped veggies to make a quick stir-fry type of meal. I literally grabbed stuff out of the fridge, threw it on the cutting board for a quick chop, then cooked it. I just tossed stuff in and didn’t measure, so my “amounts” below are just guesswork. And most of the ingredients were organic, so just buy organic whenever you can.

I cook romaine and spinach instead of eating them raw because the heat breaks down some of the roughage and allows more of the nutrients to be available for grabbing by the small intestine during the digestive process.

I usually eat on a salad plate (for portion control), but I knew tonight’s salad would be big enough to warrant using a regular dinner plate. The result was a quick, cooked “salad” that I will definitely make again.

Enjoy!

Franken-Salad and Turkey Sausage With Quinoa

Servings: 1 (yes, 1 huge salad!)

3 oz. turkey sausage, sliced 1/4″ thick
1 teaspoon organic coconut oil

In a skillet, sauté the sausage in the coconut oil until it is browned, but not blackened. Remove sausage from skillet, set aside, and keep warm.

3 red baby bell peppers, chopped
1 carrot, peeled, sliced very thinly
1 green onion, sliced thinly
1/4 Cup walnuts or pecans, chopped
1/4 Cup raisins or currants
1 to 2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup English peas (leftover or frozen, thawed, drained)
1/2 cup quinoa, already cooked (leftover is perfect)
1 small head romaine, shredded
sea salt and pepper to taste
juice from half a lemon

In the sausage/oil, sauté the baby bell peppers and the carrots for 3 to 5 minutes. Toss in the green onion, cook for a minute. Add in the chopped walnuts, raisins, water, and cook for 1 minute. Throw in peas, pre-cooked quinoa, and shredded romaine, cooking until it begins to wilt. Salt. Hit with a touch of lemon juice. Done!

Serve this Franken-Salad with sausage on the side or tossed in with the greens.

*** Hindsight ***

I used the walnuts for protein, and since the veggies have some protein, the sausage wasn’t really necessary for protein content. I was just kind of craving savory. However, this salad is very filling, and the sausage was almost too much in that regard. Leaving out the sausage will make this a tasty vegetarian dish. You could also use free-range chicken or beef sliced thinly instead of the turkey sausage.
I chose the red baby bells (over the orange and yellow baby bells in the fridge) because red bell peppers have 3 times the Vitamin C as an orange the same size. And I like to “eat from the rainbow”.
The bell peppers, carrots, and raisins are all sweet vegetables, whereas the walnuts are bitter, and the green onion is savory. The raisins really boosted the sweetness without topping the savory aspect.
I used lemon juice for the acid at the end because that’s the idea that hit me at the time. You could easily use apple cider vinegar, balsamic, or another vinegar, if you prefer.
I didn’t think about it at the time, but I also have celery I could have added. Just about any vegetable will work, as will any nut or seed if you don’t like walnuts. I eat romaine once or twice a day, so I was just trying to jazz up my usual fare. You could easily substitute spinach or other lettuce/green — though kale or other tough, leafy vegetable will need longer cooking time.
This seems to be a pretty versatile salad, but I really liked this hodge-podge version I threw together, hence the name “Franken-Salad.”

If you try this recipe, please let me know by leaving a comment below! Again, this was on the fly with what I grabbed out of the fridge. But I will be making it again, and updating the recipe as needed. Can’t wait to hear from you if you try it!

trish

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