Quinoa and Haloumi Salad

As I've progressed on this diet my blood sugar has dropped and so has my weight. Recently both my weight and my blood sugar have plateaued which I understand is fairly normal - the body thinks it's in trouble so fights back. Seems a bit more effort is now needed to kick the weight loss and blood sugar back in line, so a few more salads, a few less creamy things for a while. 

On today's course we started with a quinoa and haloumi salad. This is so full of flavour and texture. And the quinoa makes it surprisingly filling.

Ingredients

200ml vegetable stock 

2 tablespoons quinoa

100g haloumi cheese

4 separate tablespoons olive oil

4 shallots

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 large red pepper

10 cherry tomatoes

a generous handful mint

a generous handful coriander

5 or 6 spring onions

2 limes

Heat the oven to around 200C.

Make a vegetable stock. 

Whilst this is cooking, toast the quinoa. You can either do this in the oven, or, for a really popcorny taste, fry it in some butter.

Slice the haloumi cheese into pieces and fry it in 1 tablespoon olive oil.

 Using this pan, mix the quinoa and stock. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for around 15 minutes, taking care not to let it boil dry.

Cut the shallots into quarters, almost, but not quite cutting right through. 

Put them on a baking tray and carefully pour olive oil and balsamic vinegar in to each onion. 

Cook in the oven for around 45 minutes.

At the same time cook the cherry tomatoes in the same oven until well done.

 

Put the pepper on a barbecue for around 15 minutes until the flesh is scorched.

Peel the burnt outer skin off and remove the seeds from the pepper, leaving the juicy flesh.

Remove the seeds and thinly slice the pepper

Chop up the herbs and spring onions and toss them together in a mixing bowl.

 Add the roasted tomatoes

And the shallots

And the now cooked quinoa

 And the lime juice, then toss the salad gently.

Add the pepper slices

And the halloumi

And it's ready to eat.