Easter salad

Before I move on from the arugula-beet-lemon combo that I love so much, I thought I would add a couple more salad ideas:

Easter salad, named for the egg:

• 1 hard boiled egg (cooked while I was making my coffee and oatmeal before lecture this morning -- place the egg in cold water and boil the water and egg together, 10-12 minutes)
• 1/2 beet, peeled, sliced, and cooked through (you can drop this in the water with the egg or steam it in advance)
• handful of toasted almonds, chopped (popped in the toaster for 5 minutes)
• arugula
• 1/2 lemon to squeeze over the salad

This salad is fresh and colorful and adds almost no time to your morning. Other variations include arugula, beets, and lemon with steamed lentils (cooked in a rice cooker the night before) and sauteed mushrooms (sliced thin, cooked in some chopped parsley and olive oil for 2-5 minutes on the stove top). Excellent with a slice of bread or a yogurt.

A pre-spring salad

This winter I have tried to learn the physiology of the nephron as well as how to cook root vegetables, which are cheaper and less egregiously out-of-season than tomatoes. The nephron is a series of parallel tubes in the kidney that filter electrolytes and manage the pH and osmolality of the blood. Root vegetables are starches that grow in the ground. Guess which endeavor met with more success.

Today's lunch:

• 1/2 beet, peeled, steamed, and sliced thin (prepped this over the weekend to have on hand)
• 1 carrot, raw, peeled and sliced thin
• Handful of quinoa (leftover from a Seder last night -- but easy to cook just as you would rice -- my roommate has a small rice cooker that she allows me to commandeer)
• Toasted walnuts, about 1/4 cup or less (a treat! -- also Seder leftovers)
• Arugula
• 1/2 lemon

I pack the quinoa, beet, carrots, and lemon in the bottom of a tupperware with the arugula on top, keeping the walnuts in a separate container to keep them crisp. At lunch I'll squeeze the lemon over everything and toss it all together. The lemon cuts the bitterness of the arugula perfectly.

Today I'll be eating it during an advocacy and service learning meeting on how to do a community needs assessment. What are the needs in my community? What is my community?