From The Breakfast Burrito Files

I'm sure that many people out there lay claim to the invention of the Breakfast Burrito. In fact, the most reliable source for information used for doctoral thesis's and high school reports the world over (Wikipedia) states that a woman in New Mexico claims to have invented it in 1975. I personally question this because I ate a Breakfast Burrito at a restaurant in Seal Beach who's owner also claims to have invented the Breakfast Burrito back in the 70's, with old newspaper cutouts to prove it.
The truth be told,  I actually invented it back in 2004 here in Venice Beach. Wikipedia is definitely incorrect and the guy in Seal Beach doesn't know what he's talking about. Looking back on it all I can't believe that I didn't get any press.
When you set out to create something for yourself or others to eat, there are some crucial factors that come into play that must never be overlooked. When we're talking Breakfast Burrito, I'm going to have to take the reigns on this one and interject copious amounts of personal opinion when it comes to the factors.
As for Burrito factors, one important factor is the texture. Sloppy food is just that, sloppy. There is nothing worse than a heaping portion of bland eggs and beans haphazardly rolled up in a tortilla. There's just no texture variety or creativity there, even if you add chili. A good example of such a Burrito can be found at Whole Foods right here in good ol' Venice, they have a Breakfast Burrito that  is basically mushy garbage wrapped in a tortilla, and I'm sorry if you have to eat them.
The texture must define what is in the Breakfast Burrito, you have to be able to discern what it is that you are eating. There has to be a certain amount of "crunch" given to the Burrito by a crispy Hash Brown and some elasticity from Cheese. Maybe a cool splash of tangy Tomato from a Tomato that has been diced with care. Or some Buttery Avocado. The tortilla's texture has to be warm and snuggle soft, like a baby's blanket fresh from the dryer. You get the picture.
Another important is the roll/fold factor. Proper roll and fold can't be obtained unless the proper volume of ingredients are placed within the Burrito shell. The three things that bother me the most in this world are Nuclear Weapons, Carnivals, and Breakfast Burritos that are poorly rolled and fall apart at the seams. If your Breakfast Burrito isn't wrapped up properly I'm afraid it means that the person making it didn't put their heart into it.
The last but not final factor I will bestow upon you is the size factor. I understand that in these times of economic uncertainty, consumers are looking for value, but this can quite easily lead to over consumption. While a Burrito that shares a similar appearance in size and shape to an airline pillow may be appealing to some, it's just waaaaay too much and there is no need for portions that size. The Breakfast Burrito by nature isn't known for its health qualities. There's quite a bit going on in there and each kitchen or person has their own cooking technique to get the job done. In other words, one place might not use any cooking fat to cook the Burrito, while another place tallies up 20 - 30 grams of it or more.
Taking all of this into consideration Stroh's created a Breakfast Burrito that could cure a hangover and Gordon Ramsay himself would describe as "neat and tidy".
Our first version that we offered on the menu, only had Bacon as an option for meat. Followed shortly by regular Chiorizo and then Soy Chiorizo for those who don't eat meat, or simply detest Pork. From there many of our regular customers created their own personal favorites. Some only wanted Egg Whites and Avocado. While others who weren't afraid to ask, like Andrew Lin, would push the culinary envelope with outlandish lowbrow culinary requests like his personal favorite the " Buffalo Fried Chicken Breast Breakfast Burrito". For myself I love a Breakfast Burrito with extra extra Bacon and swimming in J.D. Cowles' All Spice Hot Sauce. J.D. walked into Stroh's one day and showed me some of his Hot Sauce that he had painstakingly created and bottled. He also turned out to be from Spencerport N.Y. a village not far from where I grew up. The Hot Sauce Pedigree up there is outstanding I assure you. J.D. convinced me to place his Hot Sauce on the shelves for retail and in exchange he would provide me with sample bottles for my customers to use. His sauce was such a hit that at times we went through at least eight gallons a month of Hot Sauce just for our Breakfast. He now sells it around town and I have seen it at Surfas in Culver City and Whole Foods here in Venice.
Often my main hombre in the kitchen, Manny, would only require eye contact and a simple nod to get your order going and five to ten minutes later you had a party in your hands. Although never simple, accommodating a customers wants and needs no matter how time consuming is always rewarding. Memories like this wash away any bad tastes from my whole experience and make me want to re-open when the timing is right. I'm so glad I invented the Breakfast Burrito.
For those of you who wish to make a Breakfast Burrito in your own homes that have never tried or are having a hard time duplicating what we did I will pass on a few tips. The first is that you only need no more than two Eggs in a Breakfast Burrito. A standard 10" Tortilla can't really hold more than that when you add the other ingredients.
Start out by cooking all of your ingredients separately. Saving the Eggs for last . If you are using regular or Soy Chiorizo be sure to break it up real good by moving it around the pan a lot and hacking away at it with a wooden spoon. If you don't break it up it will stay clumpy and burn adding flavors that you don't want.
When it's all ready to wrap up into a Burrito, put the mixed ingredients in, give it one fold over and pull the top flap back two thirds of the way. Then fold the left and right ears over towards the middle and finish rolling keeping your roll even and tight.
Keep your eyes open and let me know of any great Breakfast Burrito spots so I can pass them on to others or write them down in the comment section below. If no one has any I guess I could start selling them out of my back alley at a fair price !
Till next time !

One Of The Stories I Have Been Waiting To Tell

If one were to ask me what the best part about owning a business in Venice was, I would hands down have to say it was the people who lived there. The folks here in Venice gave me years of happiness and entertainment while I was standing behind the counter of Stroh's. Often described as one of the only places around where it was acceptable to roll out of bed in the morning without brushing your teeth or changing into your clothes to grab a cup of coffee, Stroh's turned out to be a pretty interesting place frequented by some pretty strange birds and I have a lot of funny stories about them.
I would have to categorize the "customers" who made so many lasting impressions into three categories to make it easier on me to remember. Category number one were people that actually worked on a regular basis at a regular job, they always paid full price and never had a problem with it. Category two, were people who had worked in the past or just finished up a gig or were in between paintings and were waiting for more work and always paid but needed a little discount from time to time. Category three was reserved for those who had no desire to work, only mooch and beg. Category two and three made for the most interesting people. My version of interesting might be a little different from yours, but I am sure you would appreciate it.
One day, a man that would fit into category number three decided to pop in to Stroh's and check out what we had going on. I came to learn that his name was Frank (not Steak Salad Frank) and he had just finished serving a little bit of time in County and he was down on his luck. Go figure. Well, just like you never feed a stray cat....Frank started to make a pretty regular appearance during prime business hours and I just did'nt have the heart to turn him down. Ah well, nobody's perfect.  It didn't take too long and as you can imagine he started to become a nuisance, customers and employees alike started to grow tired of him.
Enter my Wife. My Wife has a no nonsence, take no prisoners approach to everything. That's why I love her. Ooooohhhhh she's so tough. Exactly what someone like me needs.
One day Frank made the fatal mistake of walking in to Stroh's while my wife was working and asked for a sandwich. My wife politely responded "no", and probably fully expected him to just walk away. By this time Frank had become pretty entitled to his free sandwiches and wasn't going to take no for an answer from an unfamiliar face without causing some sort of chaos. So, in a not so creative fashion he proceeded to cuss out my wife with no shame whatsoever and tell her that he was going to get his sandwich if it was the last thing he did. Now that he had alienated everyone in the store it was time for him to leave and go about the rest of his day.
Frank made good on his promise in a big way. To this day I am still impressed with his handy work and because of it, don't really harbor any ill feelings towards him. Two nights after he had his episode at Stroh's, I was jolted out of bed by my phone at about 3:00 a.m.. The caller ID showed that it was my alarm company calling me. I answered the phone and the operator on the other end told me that the motion sensors were going off at Stroh's and that the police were on their way. I put my clothes on to meet the police at the shop and survey the potential damage and missing items. We always kept our cash register with change for the next day, and I figured that this was the target, possibly also a broken window, smashed in door or some missing equipment. But when I arrived, there were no broken windows and the front and back doors were still locked and all of the stores equipment was right where it was supposed to be.
When the police officers said it was safe to go in, upon further inspection I noticed that the door to the six foot deli case which held the sandwiches was sitting wide open. This was strange to me not only because it was three o' clock in the morning and I thought that there was still the off chance I was dreaming, but also nothing else in the store whatsoever had been touched. The burglar had broken in and had only taken something from the deli case ! The officer that walked around the side of the building to do a perimeter check noticed that there was a trash can underneath our bathroom window, which was located a full 12 feet above the side walk and only about 24" wide by 12" tall. Beyond the trash can the officer said that "there was a trail of cheese and grilled vegetables leading around the corner". It did'nt take long to figure out that the person responsible for this used a trash can to climb through the bathroom window to steal the one last sandwich out of our deli case and then climb back through the very same window.
I recalled that when I closed the previous night, I left the one last sandwich that didn't sell in the case because I thought that someone would be along to buy it before we closed up for the night. But at the end of the night, the lights were turned off, the floor was mopped and the sandwich was forgotten. Left out as easy prey for a vengeful and ambitious sandwich thief.
It would be a while before I saw Frank in the neighborhood again, and by that time I didn't really care about it anymore anyway. I later received word that the police were looking for him because he was stealing peoples car keys off of their counters then later trying to offer them back saying that he "found them in the alley" and he was looking for a reward. Not the dumbest idea when you think about it, but also not the brightest.
Well, that's my story about "Frank the Sandwich Thief", not to be confused with "Steak Salad Frank". Join me again shortly for some of the tips and secrets to an amazing great breakfast burrito.

Considering Grass Fed Beef- It Matters What Your Food Eats

A few months ago when we switched to Grass Fed Beef I had a tough time wrapping my head around the increase in price over conventional beef. It took a little while but I stuck with it and seem to have everything under control now. The steak is once again sizzling on the grill. Our household meat intake averaged around twice per week so it wasn't too difficult to get the ball rolling and find the same cuts that we were used to. There were several reasons in our decision to make the switch to Grass Fed Beef. Hopefully you will find these reasons and my beliefs similar to yours, and you will too consider Grass Fed Beef the next time you go to the store or farmers market if you haven't done so already.

The first and initial reason that we switched to Grass Fed Beef were the facilities in which our conventional meat was raised and processed. We wanted absolutely no part of that mess. I understand and support breeding cows for food. I don't understand why they cant have bedding, or room to move around, or food without antibiotics, growth hormones, and animal by products.
Being in the food industry for half of my life I have seen some pretty questionable things with my own eyes when it comes to large scale operations. I have personally felt for many years that larger operations lead to larger mistakes when it comes to potentially hazardous foods like meat. When you have so much meat moving through one place, there is little chance of shutting the line down to "fix" a problem. In other words the meat packing industry keeps operations moving at all costs, no matter what. That's not safe at all ! Now that I have children I am even more cautious about this because time and time again, case after heartbreaking case, there seems to be little to no accountability on the behalf of the meat industry.

The second reason we switched to Grass Fed Beef was that cows eat grass and that's all they should eat. Cows don't naturally have access to grain or corn. They're pasture animals, they eat grass. Conventionally raised beef is fed corn and or grain with growth hormones to fatten the cow up at lightning speed. This isn't so easy on the cow because a cows stomach isn't built to digest or assimilate massive amounts of corn and grain. Only grass.
Because of this risk, the feed lots which fatten up the cow before slaughter have it down to an almost exact science. They have figured out that they have about a 150 - 160 day window in which they can feed the cow a diet of pure grain or corn to fatten it up and get it ready for market before it will basically fall over and die.
In addition to the cow not being designed by nature to eat corn and grain there is the whole issue of those pesky GMO's. Most of the corn and grain used to feed the cows is a GMO. Plus it takes so much fuel to grow the corn, harvest it and move it around that it hardly seems worth the carbon footprint when a cow can just eat grass.

The third reason we made the switch was nutrition. It became quite obvious to me that the reason why so many studies that have been released over the years showing that red meat was unhealthy for us, wasn't due to the meat actually being unhealthy, but rather, the food that the cows were eating was creating unhealthy meat. We need saturated fats in our diets, but all the grains and corn that the cow is fed in the feed lot produces Beef with more of the bad vegetable fats (Omega 6)  and less of the good vegetable fats (Omega 3). For the record Grass Fed Beef is packed with Omega 3 and conventional meat isn't. You could probably eat a hamburger every day for the rest of your life and never have a cholesterol problem if you ate Grass Fed Beef.

The fourth but not final reason for us making the switch to Grass Fed Beef was the flavor. Grass fed beef is soooooo good ! Yes, it's a little more lean that conventional beef, but that issue can be nearly eliminated by purchasing the right cuts to get the job done. If you want a juicy steak, buy a bone-in Ribeye or Delmonico. Don't pick up a Strip steak, that might be a little too lean.
If you live here on the West side I can tell you that Whole Foods here in Venice has a Grass Fed Ribeye that's about $15.00 a pound cheaper than their dry aged conventional meat. 
Give it a try, you'll notice that the flavor of the Beef is easier to appreciate, and doesn't require as much seasoning to make it taste good.

Stroh's Steak Salad - It's What's For Dinner

For years our Steak Salad was a huge hit. In fact I had a great customer named Frank who used to come in every day for years to have a scoop of Steak Salad and a scoop of Chicken Avocado Salad on top of Mixed Greens for lunch.

For this recipe I use Flank Steak because of its rich flavor, and perfect size and shape for slicing into bite sized cubes. Flank Steak is a long flat cut of meat that comes from the abdominal muscles of the cow. Don't worry that it might be a little tougher than other cuts because it will tenderize nicely with the vinaigrette. Weather you are buying grass fed, or organic, be sure that when choosing a piece of Flank, that you look for a deep red color with no shades of brown or grey whatsoever.

The most important technique used in this recipe is searing. We'll first sear the Flank Steak, then we will finish it off in the oven (unless you have a thin piece) for about fifteen to twenty minutes. When searing anything you must have a "searing" hot pan. This means that you will have to get the pan hotter than you would normally use it. You can tell with your ears if the pan is hot enough when you put the beef in. You should hear a high pitched sizzling sound with a couple of zings and pings and something that sounds like pffsssttttzzzzitiiititiiittt. This is when you know it's hot enough.


Ingredients for roughly six to eight servings:

• 1.5#   Flank Steak
• 1       Pint Cherry Tomatoes
• 1       Bunch Flat Leaf Parsley
• 1/2   Head Celery
• 3-4   Carrots
• 1       Cucumber
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Sherry Vinegar
• Kosher Salt / Pepper

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
Prepare the Flank Steak by trimming off any excess fat. Place on top of a sheet pan or large platter so you can season the whole piece of meat. Drizzle a little Extra Virgin Olive Oil on one side and spread it out with the bottom of a spoon. Sprinkle a generous amount of Salt and Black Pepper after you oil the meat. Turn the Flank Steak over and repeat this process.
When meat is served cold it's best to tackle the salt level early because its tough to try to season meat that's been chilled. Try to always use fresh ground pepper in your recipes. You can use a small electric coffee bean grinder or blender to grind the whole peppercorns into a coarse mix or a fine powder. Set the meat aside and turn the heat up under your pan and wait a few minutes.
To test your pan to see if it's hot enough, drop a teaspoon of water into the pan. If the water dances around on top of the pan like a cat on a hot tin roof. If it does than you are ready.
Carefully add the meat to the pan and begin to sear it off. Let the Flank sear for about three to four minutes then flip it over and place it, pan and all in the preheated oven to finish cooking until the temp. reaches your liking. About fifteen to twenty minutes.
I would like to suggest and recommend that for better flavor,  you finish cooking the meat when it's at medium rare or before. You want to end up with a nice outer layer of cooked meat and a juicy red inner layer. Think of a perfectly seared Tuna Barrel ready to be sliced. This is what you're really after.
After you have taken the meat out of the oven, place it in the refrigerator until it is completely cool.
While you are waiting for the meat to cool prepare all of your vegetables. Be sure to use organic vegetables whenever and wherever possible. The difference in flavor over conventionally grown will make everything taste better and is healthier for you ! Thoroughly rinse all of them and peel the Carrots and peel and de-seed the Cucumber.
Dice the carrots, cucumber and celery into a small dice.
Pick the leaves off of the Parsley and finely chop (keep this separate).
Cut all of the cherry tomatoes in half. If you cant find Cherry Tomatoes any Tomato will do just fine.
Unless it took you a couple of hours or so to chop the vegetables, (in which case contact me, so I can show you how to use a knife) the beef should still be cooling off, so take a break and come back to finish it later..

Now that the beef has cooled and the vegetables are chilled it's time to finish the dish. Start off by cutting the Flank Steak into small cubes about the size of the dice on a Vegas Craps table or just a tad bigger. Place them into a large mixing bowl and add the diced vegetables. Start to season everything by adding some salt and pepper and a few splashes of Sherry Vinegar and gently mix. Now add the Cherry Tomatoes and some Olive Oil and mix a little more. Taste a cube of beef and get a sense of how much more seasoning you need. If you want it a little more tangy add some salt and vinegar. If you want it a little more smooth add some Olive Oil.
If you're not sure take a few spoons full of the mixture out and put it in a small bowl, and test the seasoning limits with a smaller portion. You can always add this back into the larger mixture without affecting it flavor wise at all.
After you have seasoned it to your liking, mix the parsley in. Let the completed mix marinate in the fridge for a little while stirring occasionally before serving. You can easily keep this in the refrigerator in a covered container for up to two days.

I hope you really enjoy this recipe ! Take the time and look for Grass Fed Beef at a good price so that you can really taste and experience the difference. Be sure to stay up to date as my next post will be entirely on Grass Fed Beef.

The "Heavy Pesticide List" -And Why You Should Take It With A Grain Of Salt

When an official list is made, a study is done, or a statement issued concerning the foods we eat, there is always good cause to listen. Recently a list of the ten most pesticide covered crops had been circulating around through multiple different media channels. I first heard it on the radio while in New York a couple of weeks ago, and have seen the actual list several times since.
I'm sure many of us have already memorized it or have tried to do so. I saw my wife giving it a shot yesterday when I stopped her and explained why I thought it might be a bad idea to memorize it and take it for word.

What we don't want to do at this point is vilify, or lay complete confidence in any one particular produce item grown in a field or on a tree.  Let me give you a couple of reasons why. The first reason is the speed at which everything is changing in the fields, farms and  markets. One year it will be the Apples and Celery at the top of the list of the crops that use the heaviest amounts of pesticides and the very next year you could possibly find Spinach and Lettuce at the top of that very same list. There are new pesticides on the market, advances in farm production, and laws and legislation concerning the farming industry passed every year. There is just too much to keep up with for us to start getting technical.
The second reason is that a list creates a false sense of what "safe" is. The list didn't really offer any levels of the amount of pesticides found on any given crop, or if number six on the list had twice as much as number three. Or if any of the crops used GMO seeds. Rather it was split in to the "dirty dozen" and the "clean fifteen". While this information is very valuable if you only purchase those particular 27 items on the list, it doesn't really lend to what I am trying to get across. That is, that you need to buy organic whenever possible.
Just because something appears on a "clean" list, or is said to use less pesticide than the others found on a list doesn't mean it's safe or safer by any means. A crop sprayed with any type of pesticide is too much pesticide. Just think about if you had to hear a drug addict out, and they were spinning around in circles trying to convince you that even though they do drugs, "there ore others out there that do way more". Would you trust this person. I hardly think so.
So be careful when you read a list, the information is there to help you but must be added to everything else you know and will eventually learn. When it comes to eating organic and learning all about it you are your own student and teacher. You're smart.. you'll figure it out.

Trapped In The Desert With My Kids- No food just $4 bottled water

Okay, the title might be a little misleading. But I was trapped in a desert with my two boys last week totally unprepared. The desert I am speaking of was the Dulles Desert. Named after Dulles International airport, this was a desolate region that was truly void of fresh, nutritious food. I had shown up unprepared.

The newly coined term "Food Desert" refers to areas both rural and urban with little to no access to healthy foods. Here in Los Angeles there are several, for example, East L.A. and South Central are known as food deserts. If you take drive through them you'll see why. There are fast food establishments peppered all over the place, and small markets offer very little when it comes to either fresh produce or nutritious options. Sad but true. Imagine, all this wonderful food supposedly all around you and you have no access to it. I personally moved here because of the direct access to all of the great produce available year round. Living back East, I was got sick of cooking with, and eating root vegetables all winter long.

On the trip out to New York to visit family my wife had packed enough food and snacks for our plane ride to survive a trip through a real desert. Naturally (no pun intended) when we got to our first layover in Chicago the boys had full bellies and when we got to Rochester they were still satisfied. The trip was a success ! Not only did we not have to spend $30 on three Hamburgers, but we felt great when we got off of the plane. We hit a 100% Organic target with all of the food packed. Snacks are easy to find organic these days, and they have a price point that is just about the same as non organic processed snacks for the most part. They were one of the first things to hit the market when organic foods made their slow debut over the past few years. Some great sources for inexpensive snacks can be found at you local Whole Foods or Co-op bulk section, online, or your local supermarkets private label brand. I provided a list below to give you an idea of what we brought along for snacks.

Here is the list of Organic snacks that we packed for the boys:

• Fuji Apples
• Cheddar Cheese
• Mix of Cashews, Almonds, Craisins  (from our glass jars with bulk items)
• Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches
• Yogurt Covered Raisins
• Seaweed Snacks
• Grapes
• Spicy/Cheddar Sesame Snacks

When you travel with your children it's especially important that you make preparations and plan in advance  for their meals and snacks. It's paramount if you are trying to eat only organic, trust me. By planning ahead you won't run into any let downs or surprises and your child's behavior and attitude on the trip will be that much more pleasant. I have taken a lot of road trips and airplane rides with my boys since they were babies and If there's one thing that has always remained the same, it's that they are going to be hungry soon.

Stroh's Quinoa Salad Recipe - Inspired By: "It's Gettin' Real In The Whole Foods Parking Lot"

With the summer home garden starting to ramp up, and seasonal fresh produce all over the place, what better time to go over a few salads that use loads of crisp chopped raw vegetables and wholesome grains and legumes than right now.
I completely understand and sympathize with you if there's any skepticism on this recipe, and possibly similar recipes to follow. A heavy mixture of raw veggies and grains can be a tough one to pass over on people at first. The thought of eating a big pile of grain like Quinoa or Black Eyed Peas just isn't that appetizing. I get it. I really do.  But I urge you to try it.
There are several benefits to adding a recipe like this to your bag of tricks. The original intent of this Blog was to help people start to grab a hold of some organic ingredients at a reasonable price and work them into their daily routine. Subsequently, working dishes like this into your daily routine will bring your food budget waaaaaaay down, and can be a great way to use up those random veggies in the fridge for something other than a science experiment.
Organic Grains and Legumes are really, really inexpensive and about as easy as pasta to cook. They hold in your dry storage area or cupboard for months on end in sealed (keeps bugs out) containers. They are a fundamental building block of proper nutrition, and they're about as filling as anything out there.
I first started using Quinoa after I grew tired of Couscous and started to experiment with other grains. Although technically a grain, Couscous always seems like a pasta to me. And although I've grown tired of it I haven't turned my back on it. I just felt like I needed to see some other grains, you know what I'm saying ?
So without further adieu, here is my recipe for Quinoa Salad.

Stroh's Quinoa Salad 
Packed with protein and gluten free!

Ingredients for about six servings

• Quinoa                                                              1 1/2 cups
• Water / Stock                                                        4 cups
• Cucumber                                                          1
• Carrot                                                                 3
• Chives                                                             1 bunch
• Celery                                                             4-5 stalks
• Flat Leaf Parsley                                         1 Bunch
• Red/Yellow Bell Pepper                              1
• Mint                                                                 Just a few leaves
• Red Onion                                                          1/2
• Lemons                                                                2-3
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• Kosher Salt/ Pepper

Rinse the Quinoa thoroughly under cold running water. Drain and place in pot with your cooking liquid.Water or Vegetable Stock both cook the Quinoa the same, but a light vegetable stock will give it a little more flavor. Add a healthy pinch of salt to the cooking liquid and bring it to a boil. Once the Quinoa has reached a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and cover the pot to let cook for about fifteen minutes or until all of the cooking liquid is absorbed and the Quinoa is fluffy. Once the Quinoa is finished, fluff with a fork as you would rice and add a little Olive Oil for to keep the Quinoa from sticking together and clumping. Place it in the refrigerator to cool.

While the Quinoa is cooling prepare all of your vegetables for your knifework. Rinse them thoroughly, peel them, de-seed them and cut them into a small dice. I like to use a rule of thumb that the cut ingredients in your dish should be cut as small as the main ingredient. In other words, the Quinoa is really tiny, so cut the vegetables tiny ! Smaller cut vegetables will also give you an explosion of color in the dish.
Chop the herbs finely and cut the lemons in half.

Remove the cooled Quinoa from the refrigerator and stir in all of the cut vegetables and herbs. The acids in this recipe (Vinegar & Lemon juice) are added to the Quinoa first. My technique is to start off by adding about a tablespoon or two of  the vinegar, and the juice of one lemon. Fold it in to the mixture and add a few tablespoons the Olive Oil. Now add some salt and pepper and taste it for proper seasoning.
Keep tasting it, if it needs more salt or more olive oil, add more, don't be afraid but don't get crazy. The only way you're going to get this, and any other recipe right is if you keep tasting it.
In the our home we haven't ever had a salt and pepper shaker on our dinner table. I'm not forcing anyone to eat it my way, there's just no need when your food is properly seasoned.