Healthy Kettle Corn? You bet!

This one is so easy and delicious, it's sinful.

Ingredients
1/4 to 1/2 cup yellow popcorn
Butter flavored non-stick spray
1 T Splenda
2 t salt

Air-pop the popcorn.  Spray withe the butter spray.  Sprinkle liberally with salt and splenda.  Toss to coat.

Enjoy.  Try to avoid making a second batch.

This Week's Meal Plan: New Recipe

I spent the major part of my weekend going through boxes of mementos from my school days and books and culling and clearing out
crap
stuff as part of my "I'm not moving all this stuff" project.  Great progress.  Very happy.  Two large garbage bags  thrown out, and the remaining stuff condensed into two small containers.  I also had a visit from my brother Don, who was fishing over at Rend Lake.  So the only cooking that I got done this weekend was to make Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls for my brother and his 10 closest fishing buddies.

As I look to begin the work week, I'm also looking forward to cooking some new recipes. I have some quinoa I'd like to use in a salad.  One choice I have is to make a savory salad, in particular a quinoa salad with pine nuts, green onion, and cilantro recipe I found.  The alternative is a sweet salad of quinoa with dried fruit and nuts with a lemon vinagrette.  I haven't decided which to make yet, but since I've had to piece together the sweet recipe from sources scattered around the net, I'm going to post it here if for nothing else so I don't have to piece that together again from scratch.

Quinoa salad with dried fruit and nuts

1 cup quinoa

1.5 cups water

pinch of salt

1/2 cup dried apricots, diced

3 mission figs, dried, and diced

1/4 cup dried dates, diced

1/2 cup raisins, golden and dark

1/2 cup nuts (possibilities include pecans, slivered onions, or walnuts)

Salad greens

Lemon vinagrette

Rinse quinoa to remove the glycoside.  Rinse until no more foam appears.  In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa, water, and salt to a rolling boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer, cover and let simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes with the lid on.  Remove lid and fluff with fork.  Add dried fruit and nuts.  

Place greens on a plate and drizzle with lemon vinagrette.  Top with quinoa and dried fruit.

Lemon vinagrette

2 tablespoons neutral oil

2 tablespoons lemon juice
sprig of mint
pinch of salt


Mix together and allow flavors to meld in the refrigerator for several hours before eating.