Monday, March 5, 2012

Quinoa Salad and Weekend Snaps

I had an eventful weekend and hope you did too! I caught up with a lot of great friends. Spent my Saturday at an early St Patricks Day party, went shopping, and got cocktails. My Sunday was reserved for color coding my closet, which is working out wonderfully already. I am embarrassed to admit that I forgot to charge my camera and take pics this weekend.

I also recreated my favorite salad. It's a vegetarian quinoa salad. I'm excited to share my first healthy recipe!

How to make quinoa (keen-wa) salad

Quinoa is a great source of iron and protein. I recently read a lot about it in Self magazine. 
Recipe
1. Cook 1 cup of quinoa in 2 cups of vegetable stock for about 12 minutes
2. Chill the cooked quinoa for about 20-30 minutes in the fridge
3. Chop into small pieces (approx 1/2 cup of each) celery, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, red and yellow pepper
3. Drain a can of black beans and corn, put aside
4. Chop about 5 leafs of fresh cilantro, put aside
5. Mix the chopped vegetables into the quinoa, then carefully add the black beans and corn
6. Garnish the top with the chopped cilantro, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and fresh black pepper

Makes approximately 4 servings

The salad can be served cold or warm. I like it cold. It is a delicious colorful salad.  This recipe can stay in the fridge for a few days and is great to pack in containers and bring to work for lunch. 
 Interesting fact quinoa is actually a complete protein even though it is a grain.  

Hope you like it! I can't wait to share more healthy recipes.

xoxo

1 comment:

  1. I'm so going to try this I need more protein in my diet!!! thanks for this :)

    ReplyDelete

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