Fresh herb lentil quinoa balls in tomato sauce, potato torte and asparagus side - gluten and dairy free

A week ago today, I had Better Homes and Gardens at my house to shoot our powder room tuned full bath. I documented the whole day here.



For lunch I served some home made recipes. We had fresh herb, quinoa, lentil balls in a tomato sauce with garlic potato torte and a side of flash cooked asparagus in a balsamic vinaigrette with sun dried tomatoes, plum tomatoes and pine nuts. This is a gluten free, non-dairy meal.

The quinoa balls received high praise and here is the recipe on how I made them.



1 cup of quinoa - I use the pre-rinsed kind
1/2 of a packet of steamed lentils from Trader Joes (or about 1 1/2 cup of cooked lentils)
Fresh oregano and thyme, rinsed, de-stemmed, chopped.
1/2 onion - chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup of oat flour (to keep this dish gluten free)
About 24 dried Juniper berries
2 eggs
1 carrot finely grated (not pictured)
2 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 tbsp dried basil.
1/4 cup olive oil.




First, I cooked 1 cup of quinoa in two cups of water. No spices.



Then I blended the lentils into a soup.



I chopped the juniper berries very finely. They are a bit woody, so it needs to be very fine.



I chopped the herbs - about two heaping tablespoon fulls of each chopped herb. Then I added half an onion, chopped and three cloves of minced garlic as well as the Juniper berries.



Next I added the cooked quinoa, lentils, oat flour and two eggs.



And all the rest of the spices.



Remember to add some oil. And the grated carrot (not pictured). I think the added carrot will make them even better. I added the tomato sauce because I thought they were just a tad on the dry side without it. With the tomato sauce you couldn't tell at all, but I want to be able to use these quinoa balls with other things and no sauce, so the added carrot will do that for me.



I mixed it all up, then thought the texture was a bit too coarse, so I put half the mixture in the blender and blended it again, then returned it to the bowl and was much happier.



With a table spoon I made 1 1/2 inch balls. This portion made 44. Then I cooked them in the oven at 400F (200C) for 20 minutes.

Before serving them, I give them a quick fry in some olive oil to get that crunchy outside and some color.



They are great as a snack like this. B loves to eat these if he can dip them in a bit of ketchup

This recipe is the meatless, gluten and dairy free version of these meatballs.

Or you can serve them for lunch or dinner in a tomato sauce like I did here:



I made the tomato sauce with my favorite chunky tomatoes by Pomi. You can get them everywhere now. Albertson's, Sprouts etc. I added a few tablespoons of onion, dried oregano and basil, salt and pepper. Then just before serving I gently folded the quinoa balls into the sauce and garnished with fresh oregano leaves.



For the potato torte I peeled and sliced 5 baking potatoes, then cooked them for about 10 minutes. That way I could make them the day before without the potatoes turning red-ish, the potatoes don't soak as much oil and the whole dish just comes out tasting better. Not raw crunch I mixed the cooked potato slices with olive oil, a little bit of chopped onion - about 2 tbsp full, three cloves of garlic, minced and salt and pepper. On the day of the lunch I cooked the potatoes for 50 minutes at 375 F. I sprinkled them with a bit of dried Tarragon before serving.



I made this balsamic vinaigrette, but I used raw honey instead of the bear honey I have used until now after reading that a lot of the "honey" you buy is really just sugar and not much honey, so I bought a local 100% raw honey. It's great for the immune system too.

I got some thin asparagus spears from Sprouts and flash cooked them in boiling water for about two minutes. Then I drizzled the balsamic vinaigrette over top and garnished with chopped sun-dried tomatoes (the kind in oil), I sliced some plumb tomatoes thinly and then sprinkled pine nuts on top.



Here is how I timed everything

The way I was able to serve this on a day that was otherwise very busy was all in the prep ahead. I knew that my BHG shoot was on a Monday, so on Thursday, the week before I made the quinoa balls. We had them that night for dinner and I froze the rest.

On Sunday, the day before, I cooked the potatoes and prepared the torte so it just had to go in the oven. I rinsed the asparagus and made the balsamic vinaigrette. I also prepared the tomato sauce and put everything in the fridge. I transferred a portion of the quinoa balls to the fridge for thawing.

Then I got out plates, silver ware and glasses and put napkins in my felt flower napkin rings. I put them in a stack on my dining table.

On Monday, about an hour before lunch I put the potatoes in the oven, the pot of tomato sauce on the stove. Then I chopped the sun dried tomatoes and the plumb tomatoes and rinsed and picked the oregano leaves off the stems. About 15 minutes before we ate, I put all the quinoa balls on a pan with some olive oil and fried them up. Two minutes before we ate, I dumped the asparagus into some boiling water.

Then, while Laura, Edmund and Cris set the table outside with the plates I had prepared, I had B make us a jug of water and a jug of Lingonberry while I quickly tossed the quinoa balls with the tomato sauce and plated it with the Oregano. On another plate I arranged the asparagus with the vinaigrette, tomatoes and pine nuts. And voila - lunch was served in no time.

Before we sat down, I turned on the ice cream maker with the coconut ice cream we had for dessert. More on that in a later post