Vogel's Golden Baked Cluster Crunch

It only occurred to me quite recently that I had never mentioned my absolute favourite Low Gi cereal. This has been my go to cereal for several years. Indeed since I first tried it. I happily eat this cereal most of the year round. There's always a box in the cupboard. Of course in the winter I take a break and eat some fabulous porridge. Sometimes I make my own muesli. But I go back to eating Cluster Crunch.

There are a range of flavours but we only get the
Classic Cluster Crunch locally

It is crunchy and fabulous. Recently I went to buy some and they'd moved it on the shelf at the supermarket and I must admit to a bit of a panic until I found it. Hoping that it hadn't been discontinued, or just not being sold a my local supermarket. Happily I found it again. Crisis averted.

It's great plain, I try not to eat it straight from the box,
but it does make a nice snack

I often add seasonal fruit

Or some of my fabulous baked rhubarb with yoghurt and almonds

Spiced Quinoa Pilaf with Corn and Broccoli

I was inspired by this recipe in the Sunday paper recently. I've been buying sandwiches for my work lunch instead of making things. This one got me back in the low GI lunchtime groove. I really enjoyed it, although I was a tiny bit sick of it by day 5.

Quinoa is a low GI superfood. Gi 51. Corn and broccoli are both good for us of course. I eat a reasonable amount of corn, but don't usually search out broccoli, it was good to highlight it here. And I found a beautiful head of broccoli and two gorgeous cobs of corn at my local farmers market on the very day I was making this.

Broccoli isn't a carbohydrate source, and so doesn't have a GI value. Corn on the cob has a low GI value of 48.

Spiced Quinoa Pilaf with Corn and Broccoli

1 tblsp olive oil
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
150gm (1 cup) quinoa
500 ml (2 cups) water
300gm broccoli, cut into florets
2 large corncobs,  husked removed
2 tblsp chopped fresh coriander
Feta, crumbled

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute onion, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic, ginger and spices. Cook, stirring for 1 minute until fragrant. Stir in quinoa. Add water and stir. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Uncover and place broccoli on top. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to the boil. Cook corn. Remove corn from water. Set aside to cool. Cut down the corncob to remove the kernels.

Add corn and chopped coriander to mixture. Top with feta.

Adapted from You Are What You Eat
Sunday Telegraph 28/2/12

The original recipe used yoghurt as a topping. I didn't have any this week, so used a bit of crumbled goat feta instead. It is accidentally vegan if you leave off the cheese.

It also grilled the corn on the cob rather than boiling it. It was easier for me to boil it that day, so I did.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.

Smoked Salmon and Cucumber Salad

It has been a long slow cool start to summer in my part of Australia this year. The temperatures are starting to warm up finally and we can enjoy some salads, eaten outside in the evening. We enjoyed this one tonight. It went particularly well with a couple of glasses of champagne.

It's prepared in minutes, and totally non-cook. Always a bonus in the summer.

Smoked Salmon and Cucumber Salad

1/2 tsp low Gi sugar
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
1tblsp finely chopped chives
1 tblsp finely chopped dill
1/4 cup cream
1 piece hot smoked salmon, flaked
1/2 cos lettuce
1 telegraph (long) cucumber, thinly sliced

In a small bowl lend together the sugar, lemon juice, chives, dill and cream. Add the salmon. Toss to combine.

Arrange lettuce and cucumber on plates. Top with the salmon mixture.

Serves 2.

Notes
Adapted from a recipe in Marie Claire Fresh (Michele Cranston). The original recipe used smoked trout, which works very well too of course. The original recipe also salted the cucumbers, this step made them soggy in the final dish, and I preferred just using plain sliced cucumber to keep it crunchy. The original recipe called for watercress, but we couldn't find any this week so used cos lettuce instead. I imagine it would be very tasty.

Cream is of course relatively high in fat, so is low GI by definition. But there is only a small portion of cream per person here. You could substitute for it if you wanted to make it lower fat.

This post is linked to Weekend Cooking, a fabulous weekly meme at Beth Fish Reads.