Salads are a great idea in spring.  Use all that wonderful, fresh, garden stuff.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sweet pepper (your choice on the color)
1/2 cup sliced celery
1/2 cup seedless grapes, halved
1 red delicious apple, peeled, cored and chopped
1/4 cup toasted chopped walnuts.

Poppy Seed Dressing:
 1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp liquid honey
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1/4 tsp poppy seeds
pinch of salt and paprika

Put sweet pepper, celery, grapes, and apple in a bowl.  In another bowl, whisk together yogurt, oney, lemon juice, mustard, poppy seeds, salt and paprika until smooth.  Add to the salad mixture; toss to coat.  Serve sprinkled with walnuts.

I totally admit to loving nuts and seeds as a snack.  Here is a good one for you to try that is super easy.  You can omit or reduce the salt.

Ingredients:

3 cups walnut halves
2 tbsp walnut oil or olive oil
3/4 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 tsp sea salt or kosher salt

1) In a large bowl, stir together walnuts, oil, caraway seeds and salt.  Spread on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

2) Bake in a 325 F/160 C oven until golden and fragrant, about 18 minutes.  Let it cool and enjoy

This is one of the best pilafs I have ever had.  It has a lovely, light flavor and would be great with a salad.  The addition of salnuts makes it quite filling!

Ingredients:

2/3 cup wild rice
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion, finely diced
1 green onion, thinly sliced
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 cups basmati rice
2 cups spinach leaves, finely chopped
1 cup toasted walnuts, coarsely chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. In a saucepan of boiled salted water, cook the wild rice until tender, about 40 minutes; drain and set aside.

2. Meanwhile, in a separate saucepan, heat oil over medium-high heat; cook onion and white part of green onion, bay leaf, salt, and pepper until softened and just beginning to turn golden, about 5 minutes.

3. Stir in basmati rice; cook, stirring, for one minute.  Stir in 3 1/2 cups water; bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, cover and simmer until no liquid remains and rice is tender, 12 to 14 minutes.  Turn off heat.

4. Stir in spinach, walnuts, parsley, green part of green onion and wild rice; cover and let stand on turned-off burner for five minutes.  Discard bay leaf.

5. Enjoy!

I am going to be posting a few pressure cooker and slow cooker recipes over the next few months.  The beauty of both these appliances is there is a minimum amount of standing in front of the stove and stirring and watching.  Nothing here to make you all hot and sweaty.

Hummus is one of those things that probably tasted terrible the first time you had it.  This recipe is not like that at all!  I dare you to try it and not be impressed. The beauty of this recipe in the pressure cooker is that it cooks the chickpeas properly  (Chickpeas are extremely difficult to cook properly using standard cooking techniques).
Use this as dip for raw vegetables or leftover bread.

For the Chickpeas
1 1/4 cups dried chickpeas, picked over and rinsed
7 cups of water
1 tablespoon oil (needed to control foaming)
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Hummus
1 red bell pepper
2 cloves of garlic (optional)
3 to 4 tablespoons tahini (sesame seed paste)
5 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, plus more to taste
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon toasted cumin seeds
1/3 to 3/4 cup chickpea cooking liquid

1. In a 4 quart or larger pressure cooker, combine the chickpeas, water, oil, and salt.  Lock the lid in place.  Over high heat bring to high pressure.  Reduce the heat enough to maintain high pressure and cook for 35 minutes.  Turn off the heat.  Allow the pressure to come down naturally, 15 to 20 minutes.

2. While the chickpeas are cooking, cut the bell pepper in half and roast in a toaster oven for 10-15 minutes or over the stove until it is nicely roasted.

3. After the pressure has come down naturally, remove the lid, tilting it away from you to allow steam to escape.  If the chickpeas are not uniformly tender, replace the lid and simmer until done.  Drain the chickpeas, reserving the cooking liquid.  Discard any loose bean skins.  Allow the chickpeas to cool to room temperature.

4. Put the roasted red pepper in a food processor and blitz until it's a paste. Add the chickpeas, garlic, tahini, lemon juice salt, cumin and salt.  With the motor running, add enough of the cooking liquid to make a smooth, thick paste.  Add more lemon juice and salt, if needed.  Use immediately and refrigerate for up to a week.  

5. Enjoy with fresh vegetables or chunks of bread.