Antipasto and Quinoa Salad

My eyes have felt irritated this week. An almost gritty feeling, not itchy, not burning, nor like there was something in my eye, just like I’ve been constantly caught in a dust storm. I suspected a mascara needing replacement but it’s not that old.

Shivering through the days still, my mind was still entrenched in winter. Soups, casseroles, hearty fortifying fare fill our tummies while ensconced in woolly jumpers and the like trying to stay warm. With still a few weeks to go of winter and biting morning frosts I’m definitely still in winter mode. Maybe my eyes are just cold…is that even a thing?

Our bedroom window perched at tree top level looks skyward. We don’t sleep with window dressings closed, rather we like to be woken by growing light in the morning. Cloud cover, fog and grey, still greets us most mornings as we move through August and the last weeks of winter. As daytime rises so too does the sun. Cloud cover melted away by warming sun, broken up and burnt off reveals warming bright glowing sunshine, the kind that puts a spring in your step and a smile on your face. The sunshine has had a particularly golden glow recently, one that catches your attention and creates its own sense of warmth, ‘warm light’ my photographer brain would say. Skinks and geckos are burrowing out of the mulch in the front garden rising to the warmth, a morning sunbake to great an enticement to ignore. Kookaburras basking, perched on low eucalypt branches, thawing from overnight frosts take advantage of the small reptiles succumbing to temptation, swooping down feasting on their prey. The daphne and hellebore are nearing the end of their bloom while the hydrangeas and fig show the first sign of bud. And that golden glow. Lasting all day not just in the day’s bookends of golden hours but enduring during the day. The sun’s arc is shifting, poking higher through the canopy. That light, it’s richness, the product of the wattle bloom. Soft, small, fluffy pom poms in huge tight clusters weigh heavily from the soft wooded ends of the various species of acacia surrounding us. My car and windows are covered in fine yellow dust, at the right time of day in the right breezes clouds of pollen blow through like tiny yellow fairies catching the light almost sparkling. My eyes, I realise, are trying to tell me something I’ve not quite noticed yet, the seasons are turning. Spring is on the way.

As if the only sign of a visceral shift in seasons noticed by my eyes wasn’t enough I should have noticed things changing by my own shift in the kitchen. While the odd slow cook dots the menu here and there the hearty fare that would normally appear nightly is waning and my cravings lean more towards liter dinners. The move to the next season also signals the the move towards the emergence from our self-imposed hibernations when we seek out the company of pals, begin entertaining more, pondering dinners outdoors and picnics. While the temperatures don’t quite lean themselves towards balmy evenings and dinners outdoors yet I do start yearning for the meals we’ll enjoy in the months to come on such evenings. Like the weather, the produce available doesn’t quite lend itself to a variety of fresh salads but with a little inventiveness and a few things form the store cupboard I can create something akin to a summer salad that’s still satisfying enough to fuel my internal thermostat and help me stay warm once that gorgeous shoulder season sunshine sets each night in anticipation of the coming warmer months.

Antipasto and Quinoa Salad served in a savoury yoghurt puddle feels like a culinary bridge between the seasons to me. Quinoa for protein and satiety, and a variety of veg, a mix between preserved summer veg and some fresh all cooked to marry together with the traditional flavours of the Mediterranean. Served in a puddle of Greek yoghurt laced with the basil, lemon and garlic vinaigrette dressing from the salad. It’s enough to be a meal on its own or a delicious and fancy salad to accompany all the delicious BBQ’s meats we’re looking forward to enjoying in the coming months.

Ingredients:

100gm/ ½ c of quinoa

2 capsicums/bell peppers of different colours if available, cored and cut into quarters/cheeks or 1 260 gm jar of grilled capsicum in oil drained

3 french shallots, peeled and quartered lengthways

1 zucchini, ends trimmed, sliced in 1cm discs

½ c sundried tomatoes in oil drained and chopped if necessary. If you have the cherry tomato variety they’ll probably be a nice size left as they are.

1 cup of finely shredded and chopped tuscan kale or similar such as spinach, silverbeet or regular kale

Dressing:

2 Tb extra virgin olive oil

1 garlic clove crushed

1 Tb finely chopped fresh basil

1 Tb fresh lemon juice

½ - 1 tsp salt flakes to taste

1 cup Greek yoghurt

Method:

Preheat oven to 210c. Cook quinoa according to packet instructions, drain and cool.

Whisk together dressing ingredients mixing vigorously to emulsify and thicken, set aside. In another small bowl whisk yoghurt with 2 tsps of the dressing and set aside.

On a lined tray place fresh capsicum cheeks skin side up and in the oven for 30 minutes until skin is blackened. Remove from oven and place the capsicum in a sealed plastic bag to cool. On the same tray place the cut shallots inner cut side up, drizzle with olive oil and place in the oven at 190c. After ten minutes when the cut edges have almost blackened turn the onions over and return to the oven for a further ten minutes. Remove and cool.

If you have a grill pan heat over a med-high heat or the same with a medium sized heavy based frypan until just smoking, it needs to be very hot. Brush the pan with olive oil and cook zucchini immediately 3 minutes each side until nice grill marks form or each side is caramelised, cool on paper towel to drain. Once cool, slice the discs in half to make them more bite sized. While they’re cooling remove capsicum from bag and peel away the singed skin, it should come away easily. Slice into 1 cm wide strips.

In a large bowl combine quinoa and all vegetables gently folding to keep the veg whole.

On a serving platter plop the yoghurt in the centre and using the back of a large spoon gently make circles gradually increasing in size until it’s all spread out to the edges of the plate in a ring forming a mote of sorts. Much in the way of adding sauce to a pizza. Gently pile the salad in the middle of the yoghurt puddle in a pile mounding to a peak in the middle. When ready to serve drizzle the dressing all around, it will drizzle down through the pile and mix more as your guests serve themselves.

Notes:

To make things easier for yourself you can use premade antipasto in the flavours you prefer just be sure and buy the veg preserved in oil not vinegar as obviously there’ll be a significant flavour difference. You might enjoy eggplant in place of the zucc for example.

A 260gm jar of chargilled capsicum can be used in place of the two fresh caps.

If quinoa isn’t your jam replace with one you do prefer such as farro, rice or barley. Any small similar grain will work. If you wish to use pasta instead of quinoa use a small shaped one like macaroni and use 200 gm.