Quinoa and Black Beans

Well, I haven't posted in months. What have we been eating for all that time? I'm not really sure. When I'm not organized, mealtime suffers, and I think that is what happened. I'm happy to say that we don't resort to fast food very often (I think we did order out pizza once...) but since it is summer we did bbq quite a bit, and lets just say I'm glad my kids like pancakes.


The last six or seven weeks, I have gone to great effort to make a meal plan each week, which means I get things on the grocery list, which means there is a chance I have the right kind of food in the house when it comes time to make dinner. Several times I have even gotten the right food out of the freezer the night before and sometimes I've gotten the crockpot turned on in the morning. That sure helps life to be calmer when I am able to plan ahead like that.

In looking at my meals that I actually planned, almost every single one was a repeat of something I've already posted. 26 meals and I'm already at the end of my repertoire? I wouldn't be surprised if it is true. Pathetic.

I did try a new recipe last night. My brother was coming over for dinner so I needed to actually cook, but he is a pretty low maintenance brother so I decided to try out a new recipe that I found on www.allrecipes.com. I served it with cornbread and a salad.

1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn kernels (I used an ear of fresh, cut off the cob)
2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained (I cooked up 2 c. of dried beans)
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro.

Ratings:

The presentation was a little blah. It is just a pile of stuff on your plate. Do you serve it in a bowl with a spoon? Do you wrap it in a tortilla? Is it a casserole? Is it a side dish? The quinoa and beans definitely give it enough protein for it to be a main dish, but I probably wouldn't serve it to company (other than low maintenance brother) unless I could figure out a better presentation, maybe the tortilla idea. It turned out much tastier than I expected. The onions and garlic and corn really gave it a lot of flavor. The spices could have been stronger. And I thought the proportions were a little off, next time I'll use more quinoa to balance it with the beans.

6YO: Asked to try a little, and then asked for seconds.

4YO: Ate cornbread and picked out carrots from the salad.

1YO: He loves beans, so he picked out the beans. When he ate a spoonful with other things mixed in, he spit it out. Maybe a little tedious, but he ate lots of beans.