This is a post about food, you have been warned.
We have a teenage ballerina. Our 15 year old, Ophélia, spends most of her time dancing and squeezes in time to eat, sleep, do school, and see her family when she can. Feeding a ballerina is more challenging than you may think. It turns out, they actually eat and they can eat a lot too. But it can’t just be anything, at least, not for my ballerina. Focusing on whole foods with high protein, high good fats, and high flavor make a huge difference in her energy levels, ability to focus, and over-all feeling healthy. We’ve also noticed that eating well seems to mean less injury and more endurance. With the right food choices, it’s easy to meet her hunger (a teenager dancing 6-8 hours a day gets really, really hungry!) and satisfy her flavor palette. Loading up on vegetables means she gets the volume she needs along with the important nutrients her body craves and including high protein sources like meat, beans and quinoa helps her muscles repair and heal. Intentionally limiting her carbs to those naturally occurring in fruits, vegetables, and other whole, unprocessed foods has been the simplest way for her to avoid foods that would lead to blood sugar crashes and storing fat. Avoiding processed foods and refined sugar (she does eat some about once or twice a week as a little treat), our whole family has benefited from the conscientious diet that provides the best long lasting energy to a dancer.
But it can get a little challenging to keep her food options interesting, easy to prepare, and fresh. Which we is why we love quinoa salad. Quinoa salad is awesome. Thanks to quinoa salad I feel like a fairly decent health conscious cook. We have many incarnations of quinoa salad, making one or two a week while trying to have variety. Fortunately, quinoa is a flexible dish that goes with many different palates. One of our favorites is the southwest or tex-mex style, yummy and versatile it works well solo or paired with tacos, taco salad, stuffed in a pepper, or a side dish to grilled seasoned meat.
Ophélia’s South of the Boarder Quinoa Salad
3 cups cooked quinoa, cold (about 1 cup uncooked)
8oz canned black beans, drained and rinsed (or cooked dried beans)
1 chopped green onion
1 chopped small orange bell pepper
1 chopped small red bell pepper
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
1 mango, cubed
1 avocado, cubed
2 tablespoons honey (can skip if mango is sweet enough, mine was tart)
the juice of half a lime
salt and pepper to taste
A splash of your favorite hot sauce or a couple of tablespoons of your favorite salsa.
* we have added a few roasted peppers and onions we had left over and they went quite nicely with the salad.
*sometimes we add a little bit of organic corn, not too much but just enough for some sweet crunch if we skip the mango.
Mix it all together and enjoy.
If you appreciate this recipe, would you consider donating to Ophélia’s fundraiser campaign to help her get to summer intensives and to help support a school in India that is very close to Ophélia’s heart? Every little bit helps and gets her closer to reaching her goals. Thank you!
~Jessica
I made this tonight for my family, including my sister and b-i-l. EVERYONE raved over it! I used 2 avocados instead of one, I left out the tomato because we didn’t have one, and I used red kidney beans because we’re out of black beans. It was a raging success, and everyone begged for the recipe. I’m sending them the link here now. 🙂