Tag Archives: Quick dinner

Quinoa with Corn & Scallions

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Quinoa with Corn and Scallions

cornquinoa

Hello all! 🙂 Hope you’re enjoying the start to “summer”. I always think of Memorial Day as the kick-off to summer even though I know it technically isn’t until June 21st. I think this quinoa side dish is the perrrrfect compliment to a barbecue or picnic, really any where any time, but particularly those 😉 I want to make this recipe again because as you can see from my picture it turned out a little gooier than  I would like. Next time will make it a littler drier by undercooking the quinoa a little bit. I hope you guys enjoy this deeeelicious recipe and let me know what you think!

Ingredients:

4 ears corn, shucked (If you want you could use frozen corn and just skip steps 1 and 2 below)
1 Tablespoon grated fresh lemon zest
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/4 stick (1/8 cup) unsalted butter, melted
1 Tablespoon honey
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
2 cups uncooked quinoa
4 scallions, chopped

Directions:

Place the corn in a large pot and fill it with enough water to cover the corn. Cover the pot and bring it to a boil. As soon as the water comes to a boil, turn off the heat and let the pot stand, covered, for 5 minutes.

Remove the corn from the pot and let it cool on a cutting board until it’s easy to handle. Then, using a sharp knife, cut the kernels off the cob.

Prepare the dressing by whisking together the lemon zest, lemon juice, melted butter, honey, salt and pepper in a large bowl.

Rinse the uncooked quinoa in a sieve under cold water until the water runs clear.

Cook the quinoa in a pot of of boiling salted water per the package directions.

Add the quinoa, corn kernels and chopped scallions to the bowl with the dressing and toss until it’s evenly coated. Season with salt and pepper and serve.(This is my opinion but I think this dish would be awesome served cold too!)

As always, thanks for checking out my blog! Now go out there and enjoy the summer!

xoxo

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Lemon Baked Tilapia with Spinach & Carrot Lentils

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Lemon Baked Tilapia with Spinach & Carrot Lentils

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Lentil Recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 quart water
  • 1/2 cup lentils
  • 1 carrot, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
  • 1/2 onion, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 dried bay leaf
  • Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 8 ounces spinach, stems removed, leaves washed well

Directions

  1. In a large saucepan, combine the water, lentils, carrot, onion, garlic, and bay leaf. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, until the lentils are soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain, discarding bay leaf.
  2. Use a paper towel to wipe out any water from the saucepan. Add oil, and return pan to medium heat. Stir in the lentils, vegetables, and spinach. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the spinach is wilted, about 2 minutes. Serve 🙂

* Later in the week I made this recipe again but added ground turkey and just had it for lunch a couple days at work- it was equally amazing! Seriously so delicious!!!

Tilapia Recipe

Ingredients

  • 2 tilapia filets (*or really you could adapt this to however many you want to make as ingredient measurements aren’t exact)
  • Lemons (I used 1 lemon- the juice of 1 half and then sliced the other half)
  • Salt and Pepper

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  2. Line a glass baking dish with foil and grease with non-stick spray or olive oil 
  3. Put the fish in the dish
  4. Pour lemon juice over the fish filets
  5. Season the fish with salt and pepper(you can also really use any spices you choose)
  6. Place the slices of lemon over the fish
  7. Cover the dish with foil and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

There you go! Seriously so easy, and healthy and most importantly delicious!! Hopefully you guys enjoy as much as we did.

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

xoxo

G

Tomato, Potatoe,Zucchini, Summer Squash “Casserole”

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Tomato-Potato-Zuchinni-Summer Squash “Casserole”

Ingredients

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

1 medium onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 medium zucchini

1 medium Summer(yellow) Squash

1 large potato

1 large tomato

1 teaspoon dried tyme

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary (chopped)

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 cup shredded Italian cheese

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STEP 1: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Finely dice the onion and mince the garlic. Sauté onions in a skillet with olive oil until softened (roughy 5 minutes) then add the garlic until fragrant (about 1-2 minutes).

STEP 2: While the onion and garlic are sauteing, thinly slice the rest of the vegetables. Slice them into the same shape. I used a mandolin but you could also use a food processor or by hand as well(just try to get them to be as close to the same thickness as possible)

STEP 3: Spray the inside of an 8×8 square or round baking dish with non-stick spray. Spread the softened onion and garlic in the bottom of the dish. Place the thinly sliced vegetables in the baking dish vertically, in an alternating pattern. Sprinkle generously with salt, pepper,thyme, and rosemary.

STEP 4: Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, top with cheese and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown.

before

Before baking

after

After baking & with cheese!

I thought this was one of the best things I’ve ever made! I could have eaten the whole pan myself. And it’s relativly healthy. I mean sure white poatoes are super starchy for you and cheese is well, cheese- but I could think of a lot worse things to eat than this! 🙂 Super easy and super delicious- those make for the best meals!

Enjoy!

xoxo

-G

Mediterranean Cauliflower ‘Stew’ with Cous Cous

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Mediterranean Cauliflower Stew

(pretty much Vegan)

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Ingredients 
1 32 oz carton vegetable stock
1 cup couscous
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 sprigs each mint and parsley
1 shallot, chopped
2 to 4 large garlic cloves (to taste)
1 cup canned chickpeas
1 cup frozen peas
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes with juice
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 small cauliflower, cut into florets
1/2 cup black olives, pitted and cut in half (I used cured back olives)
1 6 oz container plain Greek yogurt

Directions
1. Boil the entire carton of vegetable stock in a pot. Measure 1 cup couscous in a bowl and add 1 1/2 cups of stock. Cover for ten minutes. Reserve remaining stock  in the pot to use later in recipe.(Personally I just microwaved the stock in a big Pyrex cup so I didn’t have to wash a whole other pan 🙂 )

2. Meanwhile while couscous is ‘cooking’, do your prep work: chop the mint and parsley, dice the onion and mince the garlic, separate the cauliflower into little flowerettes, and rinse and drain the chickpeas.

3. Heat olive oil in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add the onion, and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring frequently until the onion is tender, about 5 minutes, then add the garlic. Cook together for about 30 seconds then add the can of tomatoes(with juice). Continue to cook, still stirring frequently, until the tomatoes are beginning to fall apart a little, about 5 to 10 minutes.

4. Add the tomato paste, leftover stock, and cauliflower to the saucepan, and bring to a gentle boil, then reduce the heat and cover and simmer 10 minutes until the cauliflower is tender. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Add the peas and chickpeas to the stew and cook for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and add the olives.

6. Fluff the couscous and serve it in wide bowls or mound onto plates and top with the stew. Garnish with mint, parsley and yogurt.(Meal would be totally vegan if you don’t use the yogurt!)

Enjoy!

xoxo

-G

See the post that inspired me here on Sharon’s blog.

Sweet & Sour Pork

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WOOHOO on a blogging roll! Jake and I had a realization that we mainly cook pasta or some form of that- we are broke so big meat meals are out of the question, we also have no grill (well we do but it is TINY) so PASTA is it 🙂 But I try to spice it up from time to time.

This was an instance in that we ‘branched out’ haha. I made a recipe of Sweet and Sour Pork(Though I think this would work well with chicken too)

Ingredients: 

1 20 oz Can of Pineapple Chunks

1/2 cup of water

1/2 cup of vinegar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 tbsp Ketchup

2 tbsp Soy Sauce

2 pounds of pork cut into 1 inch cubes(could use chops, loin…whatever you like)

1 teaspoon of salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tablespoons of oil

2 tbsp corn starch

1 large bell pepper cut into 1 inch pieces

1 onion cut into 1 inch pieces

Hot Cooked Rice

Directions: 

1) Drain the pineapple, reserving the juice in a bowl. Add the water, vinegar, brown sugar, ketchup and soy sauce to the pineapple juice, Set Aside.

2) Season the cubed pork with salt, garlic powered and pepper. Preheat oil in large skillet over medium/high heat. Brown the pork cubes and then turn heat to low. Add 1 CUP of the pineapple juice mix. Cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes.

3) Add the corn starch to the remaining pineapple juice, whisking it to make sure you break up all the clumps. Turn the heat on the skillet to high and wisk in the cornstarch/pineapple mixture until it boils and thickens.

4) add pineapple chunks/peppers/ onion to skillet. Cook for about 5 minutes or until those items are softened to your liking.

5) Serve over rice

6) enjoy it 🙂

Super easy! and delicious and out of the ordinary!

Thanks for reading!