nom nom nom
So I'm trying to cook more, and eat healthier. I have a bad habit of shopping at the farmers markets and bringing home loads of produce, then watching it all rot on my counter & in my fridge. Plus, I read Girl's Gone Child, and she's been posting a lot of recipes with quinoa lately. She's a vegetarian and though I'm not going that route totally, it does seem like a really healthy decision to try and eat a lot of veggie based meals as a way to get all those servings and simultaneously cut down on all the crap convenience foods I've come to rely on. SO.
My quinoa recipe is loosely based on Rebecca's Informal Gathering Salad. Because I wanted to use what I had, not buy anything new (besides the quinoa), and I sort of like to just pick and choose things that I think will go together and wing it. It helps me learn my ingredients and how to mix spices and flavors I think. So that later when I'm cooking and something doesn't taste quite right I can go, "Oh! A splash of Mirin will perk this up!" Cause I'm a dork.
Does that look appetizing? The iPhone is not the best for food photography. But it sure was yummy. I made 1 cup of quinoa, rinsing it first as I'm told you should. I used chicken broth for flavor, since I'd never cooked it before (and I had it on hand). Once it was done I put half of it aside in a container to use later in the week, and was left with I suppose about 2 cups of cooked quinoa. That stuff really inflates!
I dumped the hot quinoa in a giant bowl, added some rice vinegar and sort of paddled it around like I was making sticky rice- mainly because it was kinda sticky and I was afraid I'd over cooked it, so I wanted to separate the grains a bit. I didn't really know what I was doing here.
In the meantime, I'd broiled (because it was too late/dark outside to grill) a globe zucchini, some carrots, and roasted a yellow pepper over a gas burner on my stove (I love doing that). Once the veggies cooled I chopped them up a little more and mixed them with the quinoa, adding some red wine vinegar this time. BINGO! I chopped up the remainder of an heirloom tomato before giving it one last toss and dividing it into 2 portable ziploc bowls. I then topped it with some garlic & herb feta crumbles before putting it into the fridge.
And lunch today was AWESOME. So good and really filling. I didn't want to over season anything because I really like the flavor of broiled/grilled zucchini, and the lack of any sort of real dressing or spice let all the veggie flavors come through. Plan feta would've even been fine.
I'm hoping to make this salad with greens, blueberries, goat cheese, and balsamic, later this week, and maybe next week another salad of fennel, nectarine, avocado, greens, and mustard vinaigrette after that. Both with quinoa of course.
My quinoa recipe is loosely based on Rebecca's Informal Gathering Salad. Because I wanted to use what I had, not buy anything new (besides the quinoa), and I sort of like to just pick and choose things that I think will go together and wing it. It helps me learn my ingredients and how to mix spices and flavors I think. So that later when I'm cooking and something doesn't taste quite right I can go, "Oh! A splash of Mirin will perk this up!" Cause I'm a dork.
Does that look appetizing? The iPhone is not the best for food photography. But it sure was yummy. I made 1 cup of quinoa, rinsing it first as I'm told you should. I used chicken broth for flavor, since I'd never cooked it before (and I had it on hand). Once it was done I put half of it aside in a container to use later in the week, and was left with I suppose about 2 cups of cooked quinoa. That stuff really inflates!
I dumped the hot quinoa in a giant bowl, added some rice vinegar and sort of paddled it around like I was making sticky rice- mainly because it was kinda sticky and I was afraid I'd over cooked it, so I wanted to separate the grains a bit. I didn't really know what I was doing here.
In the meantime, I'd broiled (because it was too late/dark outside to grill) a globe zucchini, some carrots, and roasted a yellow pepper over a gas burner on my stove (I love doing that). Once the veggies cooled I chopped them up a little more and mixed them with the quinoa, adding some red wine vinegar this time. BINGO! I chopped up the remainder of an heirloom tomato before giving it one last toss and dividing it into 2 portable ziploc bowls. I then topped it with some garlic & herb feta crumbles before putting it into the fridge.
And lunch today was AWESOME. So good and really filling. I didn't want to over season anything because I really like the flavor of broiled/grilled zucchini, and the lack of any sort of real dressing or spice let all the veggie flavors come through. Plan feta would've even been fine.
I'm hoping to make this salad with greens, blueberries, goat cheese, and balsamic, later this week, and maybe next week another salad of fennel, nectarine, avocado, greens, and mustard vinaigrette after that. Both with quinoa of course.