Spinach Parmesan Quinoa
Hello foodies! Summer is over :(, Fall sped by here in MN, and it’s officially Winter here. Can’t believe it will be Thanksgiving later this week! Many of you must be frantically preparing for Thanksgiving cooking and family visiting. I wanted to share with you a simple, healthy and light recipe to serve either as a side during your Thanksgiving meal, or as a tummy-friendly meal by itself, for the night after eating, drinking and midnight shopping. (I know I’ll do that last bit with much gusto this year).
I recently came across this easy recipe when I was wandering the internets (yes, I said internets.) and stumbled across this amazing blog called Lisa’s Dinnertime Dish. I made some edits to the recipe to make it a little more spicy, tangy, and creamy – I added some chili powder and some lemon juice to suit my tastes. Because I like my quinoa a little creamier, and instead of adding more cheese, I cooked the grain with a mixture of chicken stock and 2% milk.What I also love about this recipe is that it is a perfect meal for one person. 1 cup of quinoa is perfect for dinner tonight, and a work lunch box tomorrow.
I encourage you to please check out Lisa’s recipe and follow her recipe as is. Hope you like it as much as I did!
Ingredients:
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 shallot, finely minced
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil
- 1.5 cups chicken stock + 1/2 cup 2% milk – warm the mixture slightly
- 2 cups chopped baby spinach
- 1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese or any other cheese of your choice
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- Juice of 1/2 lemon, or to taste
Method:
- In a saucepan, heat the olive oil, and add the minced shallots and garlic
- When soft, add the quinoa and mix well. Then, add the stock + milk mixture, season with salt, pepper and chili powder, and allow to cook on medium heat, with a lid on the saucepan. Cook for 15 minutes or until the quinoa is cooked through
- Add the chopped spinach, cheese, lemon juice, and mix well
- Serve immediately! You could serve it with a side of leftover Thanksgiving Turkey and / or leftover vegetables / sides
On friendships… and food
Jenn of The Whole Kitchen and me finally meeting in person in Chicago
Life (and the internet) have amazing ways of making like-minded people meet. Thanks to some savvy online networking and an eagerness and openness to meet and learn from new people, I’ve made many friends online, most of whom I’ve met in person soon after an online conversation, and some who continue to be amazing virtual friends. On a recent trip to Chicago, I had the pleasure of meeting the amazing Jenn Sutherland of The Whole Kitchen. (Jenn’s blog is AWESOME and a LOT of fun to read! PS. don’t miss her husband Mark’s posts!)
Jenn and I have been virtual friends for many years since our first interaction on Brazen Careerist. As a new professional in the US, I devoured everything shared on the professional networking site. On one forum, I “met” Jenn, visited her blog, started commenting on her posts, and we soon developed a friendship over food and Indian cooking. When we met a couple weeks ago, we knew so much about each other already!
Jenn’s sweet dog – Flash
Like Jenn’s dogs. I had been seeing pictures of them on Instagram, and reading about them on her blog, and I finally met them too! Not forgetting our true loves – food – Jenn and I also cooked together. We discussed what we should make before I flied out to Chi-town and she wanted to learn how to make dosa. (I forgot to take a pic of the final product!)
Dosa is a thin crêpe made with a fermented rice and lentil batter, and hails from the southern region of India. Show me the Curry has a great recipe here, that Jenn followed. We also made a delish coconut chutney and some spiced potato stuffing to go with it. The chutney recipe is similar to this one from an earlier post. We made small modifications such as adding less water and more coconut. To give the chutney a south-indian twist, we finished it off with a temper of fried curry leaves and whole urad dal lentils.
An earlier post on Potato curry has an easy recipe here.
Coconut chutney
Spiced potato dosa stuffing
I’m so glad I had the opportunity to meet Jenn, her husband Mark, Flash and Miracle. And also so very happy I had the fortune of cooking with her! Can’t wait to meet you again Jenn and cook up more amazing things!!
Iron Chef “Honey”
It’s time to recap one more Iron Chef cooking competition. (For previous Iron Chef recaps, see here) This time, our secret ingredient was “Honey”. I must say that everyone took the competition to a whole new level, and seriously brought out the big guns. Everyone was much more competitive, the presentation was truly Iron Chef level, and the best of all, the food was delicious!
Another big highlight from this competition was the effort people put in naming their dishes. A big miss from my side, everyone took the time to come up with interesting names for their dishes. Sameera, my sister, won again (she won Iron Chef Vinegar as well) and gets to keep the prized trophy spoon. Competitive that I am, I must admit I was a little disappointed given the amount of effort I put in.
I will be sharing the recipe for the winning entry in a separate post. Linked below are recipes I used for my dishes where I made a few modifications to amp up the Honey.
My entries:
Indian vegggie fritters topped with Honey-chili-garlic sauce
Honey-Rosemary Polenta topped with a spicy veggie stew and a chili-honey crème fraîche
(Addendum: TheKitchn has THE BEST post on how to make polenta if you have never made it before)
See pics of all the entries below!
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- The gorgeous table setup
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- The winning entry – “Honey I shrunk the shrimp”
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- My entry – Honey-rosemary polenta topped with spicy veggies stew and chili-honey creme fraiche
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- My entry: Veggie fritters topped with honey-chili-garlic sauce
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- My entry: Honey-mint-lemon Margharita
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- Honey chocolate panna cotta topped with fruit compote
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- Honey lamb
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- Honey salmon love boats
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- Honey chocolate tart served with Honey cream
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- Honey bacon wraps
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- The aftermath…
One Life to Eat 