Roasted Red Pepper Quinoa with Roasted Tomatoes

Quinoa guys.

I love it. Nobody else seems to.

Why?

I don't get it.

Because its bland, they say. There is no flavor to it, they tell me.

Do you eat pasta all by its lonesome? Couscous or Rice?

I don't think so.

If you need some convincing on quinoa. I have the dish for you.

Its full of flavor, so don't even say its not.

Why is this quinoa so full of flavor.

(I keep feeling the urge to say "flavor-town" name where thats from!)

Roasted red stuff. Thats why.

Its so simple to make this quinoa dish, and its sauce.

Its super saucy.

Here are the secret ingredients:

Thing 1, 

Thing 2.

Know what they are? Can you tell from these awful, low lit photos?

Roasted red peppers, and roasted cherry tomatoes.

Roasted tomatoes with garlic are my new best friends.

I may be eating some right now. You will never know.

Roasted red pepper sauce is also my new friend.

The wonderful Ari at the Diva-Dish made this sauce for a pasta dish a few weeks ago, and I knew I had to make it in some form or another.

You know how much I love me some pesto, in any flavor or form.

This is basically the same recipe as regular pesto, but made with roasted red peppers instead of a basil.

Here's the recipe guys:

To roast the tomatoes:

 Halve 1 cup of cherry tomatoes, and add 2 cloves garlic minced. Toss with olive oil until coated.

Cook on a baking sheet, in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

To the roast the Red Peppers:

Either cook on baking sheet in 400degree oven about 30 minutes (until soft and charred)

or

Roast over stovetop flame, turning over until each side is charred and softened.

Place in a ziplock bag, while warm, and let it sweat for about fifteen minutes.

for further, step by step direction go to the diva-dish: here.

Enjoy!

Quinoa Ribboned Asparagus Salad with a side of Salmon

I love asparagus. It is one of my top three vegetable choices (what are the other two, you ask? I'm not really sure as of this moment..but I didn't want asparagus to get an ego about being labeled my fave) I love chomping on those little stalks freshly roasted with salt and lemon. Plus they make me feel fancy, and thats important.

A couple months ago, a certain member of my familia (who's identity shall remain a secret) had some blood work done. One of the tests, was an asparagine level. It was low. Me being all jokey and brilliant, told said person these levels were low because they didn't eat enough asparagus. Asparagine/Asparagus, sounds only right. Said person laughed off my comment as ridiculous and set out for a doctor visit. After said persons said doctor visit, I asked how it went.

Said persons response: "I need to eat more asparagus."

This pleased me to no end...I was right, and I get to cook more asparagus.

Just call me Dr. Bean.

So for dinner the other night, I had to fill a weekly asparagus quota, as well create a new, healthy and fresh meal.

Challenge accepted.

I have seen a few different salads floating around with ribboned asparagus. Some have quinoa, some lemon vinaigrette. Mine has all of that bizzness.

What those other cyber people did not say however, is how difficult it is to ribbon asparagus. I mean, they are super thin, and incredibly fragile. Eventually, I got it all worked out, but phew was it tough.

I mixed it up with some fresh red lettuce leaves, tossed in some quinoa and added a little avocado.

I than moved on to creating a salad dressing. Let me tell you, salad dressing making, is not one of my strong suits. Every time I see something that claims salad dressing to be the easiest thing on the planet, I want to slap them in the face. I'm just to advanced for trivial things like vinaigrettes I guess.

Anyway, the dressing I ended up with was quite yummy. It just took forever to get the ingredient portions down.

After all that was done and mixed up, I tested it out. Raw asparagus=super bitter.

So I added some mandarins to the mix, and a little more sweetness to the dressing to even it out.

Mission accomplished.

I also made some Salmon. I did it the Pioneer Women way. The super easy and delicious way as it could be called. Here it is.

I should say, I didn't actually use her recipe: I just cooked it her way: by putting salmon in cold oven and turning it to 400degrees for 25 minutes. All I put on the salmon was a little evoo, salt and pepper and a hint of garlic. 'Cause what would life be without garlic?

Once it was cooked, and ready to eat; I added some lemon-butter to the fish. Taste-ee

Here are the recipes for the salad and vinaigrette:

I also roasted some asparagus. To do that, I just laid asparagus flat on a cookie sheet and drizzled with evoo, salt, garlic powder, and a squeeze of lemon juice. I put in in a 400degree oven and cook for about 10 minutes. Until its soft, but not too flimsy.

Enjoy!

Vegtastic Meal: Vegtastic Mini Meatloaves

So today, I am giving you a special present.

This gift I am bestowing on you, is a special show featuring the starring styles of veggies.

Lots of veggies. 

All in one delicious meal.

You ready for this?

Starting the show, is the headliner-the meatloaf.

I like my meatloaves in mini form, so thats how they are gonna be.

But feel free to make it in to one big loaf.

This is no ordinary meatloaf, however.

It is full of secrets, healthy bizness disguised as a loaf of meat, really.

Lets get started, 

First prep step:

the hidden secrets.

Cook up some quinoa. do this first, so that it can be completely cooled by the time it gets added to the meat.

Next, shred up some veggies. You can really use any you want, but I used spinach, carrots, zucchini, and added some onion.

All chopped up with this guy. I sure love him.

It gets all the little pieces, a big food processor misses on the bottom.

Now that thats done, get your meat.

and break up in a bowl.

Add your seasonings, egg, ketchup, veggies, and quinoa.

and shape into loaves. 

(mine made 12)

Mix your ketchup concoction up, and spoon over loaves.

Time to go in the oven!

Cook until done.

That all there is to it!

Official recipe as follows:

Read on for more of this Vegtastic Meal!

Enjoy!

Marinated Mushrooms here

Brussel Sprouts and Cauliflower faux-tatoes here

In other news...

Have you heard?
2013 is officially the year of quinoa.

This was a top story on our local news station the other day. But of course the newscaster pronounced in qwee-no-ah, before he was corrected and said it the right way.
Just like the guy on bachelorette that one time. Did I talk about that already? I dunno. But is lack of intelligence got him booted shortly after that incident. Or it could've been the fact that they so clearly had nothing else to talk about over dinner except the dinner itself...

Beside the point. Can you tell I have Bachelor on the brain? Season premier tonight!

Back to the point-
I don't understand why it is so hard to pronounce quinoa correctly.
I mean, it shows the pronunciation right on the bag or box, depending on whatever packaging tickles your fancy.
Keen-wah people.
KEEN-WAHHH!


To read more about how quinoa is taking over the world (I knew about it first people!) click here.
To see how I have used quinoa in the past click here.

Are you overwhelmed with all the links in this post? Click here.
Just kidding. Don't click, it won't get you anywhere.

The things I do with Quinoa...

Quinoa seems to be a food people either love or hate.

I don't really get why, which is to say I don't have a strong feeling either way.

It doesn't have a taste.

It is super healthy for you,

and you can eat it sweet or savory.

a perfect vessel if you ask me.

Generally, I just use quinoa in place of rice or pasta in a recipe. Lately, I have also been using it as a oatmeal like substitute, seeing how I can't eat oats either.

Such as this quinoa yogurt parfait with berries. Which I make by cooking the quinoa in DF milk {1c quinoa=2c milk}

yummeroo.

or this avocado cilantro quinoa salad.

delish.

You can find the recipe here

One suggestion: the recipe says to cook 1/2c quinoa=2c broth. It made it too soggy, so use less broth.

I made some quinoa chilli.

Found here.

{eaten with some plentil chips, as pictures}

Seen here as a rice replacement, with a little bit of salad dressing mixed in for flavor.

So my friends, there are many things that quinoa can do for you.

Quinoa is basically the best grain you can eat, so eat a lot of it.

The future will be holding more quinoa recipes for y'all, just you wait.