Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Dragon Bowls!

As summer settles in with all of its heat and humidity, (I'm not a fan, can you tell?)  ;) I crave vegetables more than anything else -- I love how fresh, crisp, and hydrating a big bowl of veggies can be!

However, I don't find a big bowl of JUST veggies very filling . . . so I'm constantly searching for new and exciting ways to add veggie-heavy meals to my summer repertoire, without feeling constantly hungry.  Ali recently posted about one of her new-found favorite summer meals, the Dragon Bowl with Tahini Dressing, and I had to try it!




















I cooked up a mix of red and white quinoa, (as John astutely pointed out, cheaper to buy some red and some white and mix them together at home, than pay the extra $$$ for the pre-mixed "rainbow quinoa" from the bulk bin!), topped it with some Sesame-Sauteed Kale, and then piled on the veggies -- avocado, cucumber, red bell pepper, mushrooms, purple cabbage, chickpeas, shredded carrot, and some sugar snap peas and cilantro from the garden.  After making Ali's recipe for tahini dressing, I just wasn't sure about it . . . I really don't much care for nutritional yeast, and the sauce was so strong and heavy tasting on its own . . . but when drizzled cautiously over my bowlful of veggies, magic happened, people.  :)  We had HUGE bowls of this stuff a couple times this weekend, and I'm certain this recipe will grace our dinner table again and again!

What are your favorite hot weather meals?  I need some more inspiration, as all of the Dragon Bowl leftovers are at John's house, and I'm looking at one empty fridge right now -- time to go shopping!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Favorite summer meals include big huge salads, spiralized zucchini "noodles" with a nice raw tomato sauce, hummus and veggie wraps, and big huge bowls of watermelon :-)

Eileen said...

Salad, salad, salad! Potato salad, pasta salad with chickpeas, caprese salad, egg salad, and salads of a melange of vegetables in dressing--I love them all.

Emily said...

I'm so making these for lunch next week - yum!

Ali said...

Yay! Glad you liked it. It was my first real experience with nutritional yeast. I also thought it was very potent!