Millet with Carrots, Mushrooms and Mint

Gluten-free millet makes a tasty grain side dish.

To be honest, the only thing I knew about millet was what I read in fairy tales. You know, some evil, jealous stepmother or warty witch in the spooky woods would capture a flaxen haired and beautiful Princess down on her luck and pining for true love. The lovely but modest and misunderstood maiden would then be forced to find needles in haystacks or pluck wool off surly sheep or sort millet seeds. 

Quinoa Taco Salad

Quinoa taco salad- light, fresh, fabulous.

Looking for a fresh idea for a summer picnic or backyard get-together? This cool and breezy quinoa taco salad might be just what you're craving. Laced with lime juice and sea salt, the combo of fluffy quinoa and ripe avocado, spiked with red onion and sunny sweet pepper, served on a crisp bed of romaine lettuce, is a light and healthy twist on the salsa drenched bean and cheese heavy taco salads so ubiquitous years ago. It's a total win for gluten-free vegans and vegetarians. And let's face it.

Quinoa is much more hip than canned re-fried beans.

The inspiration for a quinoa taco salad was sparked over on the Gluten-Free Goddess Facebook page. Reader (and long distance friend) Patsy commented on a thread about Memorial Day picnic salads, mentioning her current fave, quinoa taco salad. We all perked up. 

Quinoa? As a taco salad? Brilliant. 

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Quinoa Salad with Roasted Beets, Chick Peas and Orange

Vegan quinoa salad with roasted beets, oranges and chick peas.

I sat down to write a post about a quinoa recipe. A vegan salad perfect for detox - the post holiday process of weaning ourselves off sugar and inflammatory foods. A recipe to encourage a fresh, clean start to the new year. Healthy food for a healthy body. Tasty inspiration for the soul. But writing about quinoa salad today seems trivial in the face of the weekend violence that took place in Arizona. I am heartsick. Profoundly saddened. Aching for every victim lost to us forever, and every victim wounded. I feel an almost physical pain imagining what their families, collective friends and colleagues are going through.

Then I thought about the word detox. And it hit me.

We need to detox not only from the sugary indulgences of our collective holiday sweet tooth, but from the dulling, insidious power of toxic language and inflammatory rhetoric that has gripped public discourse by the throat these past few years, infecting all media, from political talk shows to social networking. I see it everywhere.

And it frightens me.


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