Kasha, Beet & Dill Salad & Making Dinner Beautiful

This Kasha, Beet & Dill Salad is bursting with the flavours of fresh beets, feta cheese and dill, and is perfect served alongside BBQ meats.  It’s a versatile recipe too – if you don’t want to use kasha or buckwheat groats, you can use quinoa or rice. 

Good day friends! I’ve got to admit I’m dead tired.  I feel the pull of summer on me.  I want slow mornings.  I want lazy days. No more running around like crazy.  I’m looking forward to a summer schedule that suits us, with breakfasts on the deck, and lingering glasses of wine at dinner.  All the best things about summer. I’m looking forward to keeping it all slooooooow and low key.  So much so that I’ve already started to take it all down a notch.  I’m slowing it all down.  Trying to focus more on my family and my home.

One of the aspects of our life that needs slowing down are our dinners.  Right now they are more rushed and crazy than I would like.  They’ve become quite perfunctory and frazzled.  Which I don’t like at all because for our family, our dinner times are one of the most important parts of our day.  This is the time that we share what is going on in all of our lives.  So because this time is so important to us, I wanted to focus on making an effort to have dinner time be more special.

One of the ways I want to do this is to make our dinner table look more pretty.  No more slapping stuff down all willy nilly.  No, I want dinner to inspire us and make us feel good.   And so far, we all are really enjoying this way of doing dinner!  But I’m not putting any pressure on myself to make everything perfect.  I’m keeping it simple so I don’t get overwhelmed.  Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect and complicated to be beautiful!

How to make every day dinners more beautiful:

Just simple things that make our dinners pretty and just a little more enjoyable.

• use the good dishes (what are we saving them for?!)
• put down placemats (somewhere along the line we stopped doing this…not sure why)
• mix & match colourful serving bowls
• add pretty napkins
• serve pretty drinks
• add flowers to the table
• add some candles
• turn on some nice music

So join me!  Make your dinners a little more pretty.   A little more relaxed.  Keep it simple.  Add some flowers.

In case you are interested, I’m capturing what I can and posting pics on Instagram (you may have already seen some of our dinners.  I’m hashtagging them #makingdinnerbeautiful).  So if you want to play along on Instagram with me, go ahead!  I’d love to see what you’re doing!  Use the hashtag #makingdinnerbeautiful and we can all follow along! 

Now, it’s time for a recipe!  This dinner was actually the first one I photographed for #makingdinnerbeautiful for Instagram.

This dish is bursting with the flavours of fresh beets, feta cheese and dill, and is perfect served alongside BBQ meats.  It’s a versatile recipe too – if you don’t want to use kasha or buckwheat groats, you can use quinoa or rice.  I actually think this recipe would be best with quinoa!  Yum.

Kasha, Beet & Dill Salad

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This Kasha, Beet & Dill Salad is bursting with the flavours of fresh beets, feta cheese and dill, and is perfect served alongside BBQ meats.  It’s a versatile recipe too – if you don’t want to use kasha or buckwheat groats, you can use quinoa or rice.

• Author: Jo-Anna Rooney

Ingredients

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Kasha

• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 1 – 2 cloves garlic (minced)
• 1 cup kasha or buckwheat groats (see notes)

Salad Dressing

• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper

Salad

• 2 cups of diced (peeled & cooked beets)
• 3–4 stalks celery (chopped)
• 4 green onions (sliced)
• 1/4 –1/2 cup coarsely chopped dill
• 1/4 – 1/2 cup crumbled feta
• 3 tbsp olive oil

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Instructions

1. In saucepan bring the stock and garlic to a boil, add the kasha, then reduce the heat to low.
2. Cover and simmer until all the liquid is absorbed and the kasha is tender.
3. Remove from heat, fluff with a fork then set aside.
4. In a bowl combine the vinegar, oil, mustard salt, and pepper.
5. Toss the kasha with the salad dressing, then add the beets, celery, onions and dill.
6. Sprinkle with the feta cheese and serve!

Notes

• If you don’t have kasha, you can use buckwheat groats. But the groats have to be prepared first: In a dry pan, over medium to high heat, stir the groats until they are golden brown. Then proceed with cooking them in broth.
• You can also use quinoa or rice in this recipe instead of kasha or buckwheat groats.

Recipe adapted from The Complete Gluten-Free Whole Grains Cookbook

I hope I may have inspired you to set a pretty table tonite!  Even just a little vase of fresh flowers.  Take some time & enjoy your life!

More delicious salads to enjoy this summer:

• Greek Quinoa Salad
• Curry Quinoa & Sprouted Bean Salad
• Sprouted Bean Salad
• Corn & Bean Salad

Have a delicious day!