quinoa and sweet potato spinach salad

Ingredients

• 2-3 sweet potatoes
• spinach
• 1/2 cup cooked quinoa
• grape tomatoes
• feta cheese
• toasted almonds

Directions

1. Cook quinoa in rice cooker.
2. While quinoa cooks, wash, peel, and cut sweet potatoes into small cubes.
3. Grill sweet potato cubes in a skillet with a bit of olive oil.
4. Assemble salad with your favorite salad fixings.

blueberry quinoa cakes

Do you remember seeing Shauna's post about quinoa cakes at the beginning of the year? It has taken me this long to try it and you know what? They are really, really good. We eat quinoa often and this recipe is the perfect way to use up leftovers as it only calls for one cup of cooked quinoa. We added fresh blueberries to the batter and they were very delicious. I recommend this one for sure!

Quinoa Cakes
from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

• 1 cup cooked quinoa or brown rice
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 large egg, plus 1 large egg white
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted, plus more for skillet
• 1/4 cup low-fat milk
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup, plus more for serving
• Fresh fruit or fruit preserves (optional), for serving

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together quinoa, flour, baking powder, and salt. In another medium bowl, whisk together egg, egg white, butter, milk, and syrup until smooth. Add egg mixture to flour mixture and whisk to combine.

2. Lightly coat a large nonstick skillet or griddle with butter and heat over medium-high. Drop batter by heaping tablespoonfuls into skillet. Cook until bubbles appear on top, 2 minutes. Flip cakes and cook until golden brown on underside, 2 minutes. Wipe skillet clean and repeat with more melted butter and remaining batter (reduce heat to medium if overbrowning). Serve with maple syrup and fresh fruit or preserves if desired.

finemealwoman favorite: quinoa and black bean salad

Tonight I made this Quinoa and Black Bean Salad for dinner. It has been way too long since I made it. I posted this recipe when I first started finemealwoman. It's a great summer dish and is incredible flavorful. It is a finemealwoman favorite!

I plan to post finemealwoman favorites from time to time. I hope those of you that are new to finemealwoman will enjoy seeing some of the recipes from previous posts. As for you regular readers, maybe it will remind you of a recipe you wanted to try, but never got around to it.

quinoa and potatoes

This is a recipe that I completely made up one night as I was trying to put dinner together. I started out with a plan, but things just didn't work out how I wanted. I ended up with this, and I was skeptical of how it would taste. Lo and behold, it was really, really good. I was so surprised. Chef Jeff loves it and it is a regular around our house.

Ingredients

• 2 cups quinoa
• 8 golden potatoes
• basil
• 2-3 tablespoons olive oil
• pepper
• scallions

Directions

1. Cook quinoa in a rice cooker just as you would rice
2. Wash and cut potatoes into small chunks (I don't peel them)
   
3. Put olive oil in a pan
4. Add basil and pepper to pan
   
5. Cook the potatoes until they are soft
6. Once the quinoa and potatoes are done, mix them together in a big bowl
7. Top with diced scallions
   

a new year's feast

Chef Jeff and I have a tradition of trying different things for our Christmas dinner. Last year we made this fabulous lamb. It was divine!

Since we didn't have Christmas at our house this year, we decided to do a New Year's feast. The whole reason was because Chef Jeff wanted to cook a goose.

Chef Jeff did most of the cooking. He went all out and had a blast. A goose has reddish meat and is really greasy. Jeff had to baste it lots of times. He looked at several recipes and just put together his own, so I don't have a recipe to share.

We also had these yummy steamed veggies. I used fresh green beans and yellow squash and steamed them in my rice cooker with lemon pepper seasoning. Simple and delicious.

Chef Jeff couldn't let such fancy goose fat and grease go to waste so he used it to bake these potatoes. Sounds nasty, but they were OH SO GOOD!


Chef Jeff stuffed the goose with a quinoa hazel nut stuffing. It had celery, onions, and zucchini in it. I think he just made it up too. He's amazing like that.

So there you have it, a month after the fact and without any real recipes, but I hope it was fun to see and maybe you got some inspiration for next year.

quinoa and black bean salad

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons grated lime zest
• 2 tablespoon fresh lime juice
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 cup of black beans (I used dry beans, but you can also use a can to speed up the process)
• 4 scallions, chopped
• 1 tomato, diced
• ¼ cup chopped cilantro
• Salt
• Pepper

Directions

1. If using dry black beans: soak beans overnight and cook in crock pot until they are barely opening up
2. Cook quinoa (I cooked it in my rice cooker, but you can also boil it)
3. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together lime zest, juice, butter, oil, sugar, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper
4. Place cooked quinoa, beans, cilantro, scallions, and tomato in a large bowl
   
5. Add dressing and mix well

Recipe from epicurious

I am really into salads and quinoa right now and this is the PERFECT mix of the two. I've already made it twice and love how it turned out each time. It is light and refreshing with a zing of lime. It is a fabulous summer salad.