Meatless Monday: Quinoa and Black Beans with Homemade Tortilla Chips

This recipe was another meatless big hit at the Frost home tonight. I cooked the recipe up and decided it needed a little something to make it more exciting. Solution: homemade tortilla chips to scoop it up with. We spooned up the quinoa into a bowl, added some cheese and sour cream and scooped away. Yum. Yum.

P.S. This one got high fives from the hubs again. It seems like I get more high fives from meatless Monday than I do other days of the week- go figure!

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
  
• 1 onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth (I used chicken broth)
  
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro (I didn't have any, so I just added parsley at the end)
• Optional: 1/2 green bell pepper chopped ( I added this in)

Directions

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

Tortilla Chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Quarter corn tortillas.
Place in a single layer on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt.
Bake 5 minutes. Flip over. Salt other side. Bake another 5 minutes.
Enjoy!

You could brush some oil on to make the salt stick better if you want. You could also add some other spices to make them a little more flavorful. I didn't think they needed it with this recipe. Delish!

Moroccan Salmon and Yogurt Sauce with Garlic-Ginger Couscous

Ok, so if I saw this recipe title somewhere, I'd probably say "that sounds involved or complicated" but let me tell you: in my opinion this was SO GOOD and EASY.

Andrew and I decided to do date night in last night and use some salmon fillets that I got on sale. It was so tasty. You should give it a try.

The yogurt sauce is a marinade and an after sauce. You marinade the fish in part of it and then use the remaining half to eat with it. I was a little hesitant because it is cool and a little different, but by the end I was dipping my broccoli, mixing it with my couscous and eating it with my salmon. I think I liked the sauce a little more than Andrew, but he thought it was good too. Again, it says to grill it, but we just used a hot skillet and it worked great.

Note: the reviews of the recipe on the site said they needed more sauce. Andrew and I only used 2 fillets and so we had plenty of sauce. If you were making 4 fillets like the recipe said, I would double the sauce recipe.

SALMON RECIPE

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• Juice of 1 lemon, plus lemon wedges for garnish
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for the grill
• 2 to 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 6-ounce skinless center-cut salmon fillets
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro or parsley, for garnish

Directions

Stir together the yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, coriander, cumin, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper to taste in a small bowl. Pour half of the sauce into a large resealable plastic bag; cover and refrigerate the remaining sauce. Add the salmon to the bag and turn to coat with the marinade. Refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes, turning the bag over once.

Preheat a grill to medium-high. Remove the salmon from the marinade and blot off excess yogurt with paper towels. Lightly oil the grill and add the salmon; cook, turning once, until browned on the outside and opaque in the center, 4 to 6 minutes per side, depending on the thickness. Serve with the reserved yogurt sauce and garnish with the herbs and lemon wedges.

Recipe from Food Network

COUSCOUS

We buy the container of plain couscous so that we can season it the way we want (and it's cheaper than the preseasoned boxes).

The container says 1 cup of water, 1 T butter and some salt- bring to a boil then stir in 1 cup of couscous, remove from heat and let sit 5 min. Fluff up with fork. So to make it a little more flavorful, I made added some grated fresh ginger and a clove of garlic. After fluffing up the rice, I stirred in some parsley. Yum!

Quinoa Chili

I got this picture and recipe from Bloom. I didn't have time to grab my own camera because I was too busy eating. It was de-lish! We picked up some quinoa at the Whole Foods store this weekend. I love it in the Quinoa Butternut Squash dish that we make, but this was super good as well! I didn't have a green bell pepper in the house, so I used part of a zucchini and it was really good! I may do zucchini and pepper next time together. Man, do I love quinoa. Yum!

2 cans kidney beans, rinsed & drained (or whatever beans you like)
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
2 teaspoon salt
1 green pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup quinoa, rinsed in warm water &
cup frozen corn
1 can tomato sauce, low salt (about 2 cups)
1 cup water
Heat oil in skillet over medium heat. Add onions, and sauté until tender. Add salt, garlic, pepper and spices; sauté for 5-10 minutes. Add rinsed quinoa and stir in. Add corn, tomato sauce, and water to onion/quinoa mixture. Simmer together 20 minutes. Add beans to the pot and simmer another 15 minutes. Serve with grated cheese, sour cream, sliced avocados or whatever else you like to put on chili. Makes 6-8 (1 Cup) Servings.