Next Project. Moving On Up!!

I am putting this on here so that I remember to do this for tomorrow. I worked late, had dance practice then worked late some more, so I only have tomorrow to do this!! Or else I run out of lunches :P

I am bit nervous because it's more ambitious! Slicing of large objects - yaarrg!

Black Beans and Rice

I did another Google of my kitchen leftovers:

vegetable broth
turkey deli meat
green onions
brown basmati rice
sweet onions
garlic
baby spinach

But the results were too vague.

I ended up narrowing it down to "vegetable broth" and "rice" and picked this Black Beans and Rice recipe. I totally turkey-fied it and green-fied it though.

My version:

Black Beans and Rice

1 tbsp-ish olive oil
1 sweet onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1.5 cups brown basmati rice (the internet recipe uses long grain rice)
200g of turkey deli meat
3 cups vegetable broth
1 can black beans
0.5 of a bunch of cilantro, finely chopped
4 green onions, chopped
4 handfuls of spinach

Preparation (45 min):
1. Saute sweet onion and garlic for about 5 min.
2. Throw in rice and stir for about 3 min.
3. Throw in turkey meat and stir for 2 min.
4. Throw in vegetable broth. Bring mixture to a boil and then lower heat and let simmer, covered. After approximately 30 min, the rice will be wet and fluffy.
5. Throw in black beans, cilantro, green onions and spinach. Stir for about 5 more min.

Result: Cilantro beany oniony goodness!

Quinoa and Black Beans

Upon seeing this new blogging of my cooking adventures, cousin Summer was kind enough to share a favourite quinoa recipe of hers. Quinoa and Black Beans from here.

Here is my version:

1 tsp olive oil
1 sweet onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup quinoa (Ancient Harvest brand doesn't need to be pre-washed)
2 cups vegetable broth
1 tsp ground cumin
sprinkle of cumin seeds
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 can of black beans
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
2 handfuls of spinach

Preparation (30 min):
1. Heat olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Throw in onions and garlic. Saute until lightly brown.
2. Throw in quinoa and stir for roughly 1 minute.
3. Add vegetable broth and cumin. Bring to a boil and then lower heat to simmer for approximately 20 minutes.
4. Add corn, beans, cilantro and spinach. Simmer for around 5 minutes or until desired fluffiness.

Result: Yum. The corn adds a subtle sweet taste and nice texture!

My Attempt at Osh-Po-Lo.

This recipe was found when I googled recipes using my leftover ingredients from last week which I needed to use up ASAP. Namely these happened to be

chicken broth
cilantro
a treasure find of leftover basmati rice in my upper cupboards, an area rarely visited by my 5'2" self.

Result? One Pot Cilantro a.k.a. Osh-Po-Lo from this site.

Here is my version:

1.5 cups basmati rice
3 cups chicken broth or water or a mixture of both
150g of leftover turkey meat
a handful of chopped cilantro
a handful of chopped carrots
a couple handfuls of spinach
1 chopped sweet yellow onion
5 chopped green onions
3 minced garlic cloves
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp cumin seeds (yay cumin happy time!)
0.5 tsp coarse black pepper
2 tsp olive oil

Preparation (30 min)
1. Heat 1 tsp of olive oil in a pot - medium heat.
2. Throw in chopped yellow onion. Stir occasionally with wooden spoon and cook until translucent (~ 5 mins)
3. Throw in turkey or chicken meat and rest of olive oil and cook until no more pink spots. Mine was already cooked so I didn't have to wait.
4. Throw in minced garlic. Stir and cook for 1 min.
5. Throw in the rest of the chopped veggies and seasonings.
6. Throw in basmati rice and stir for around 2 min, letting the rice be coated in delicious yumminess.
7. Add 3 cups of water. I used up all my leftover chicken broth instead.
8. Bring to a boil and then lower heat and place cover on pot. Cook for at least 10 minutes.. until most of the water evaporates.
9. Fluff and serve! In my case, store for lunch :)

Result: Quite tasty! Strongest flavours were the cilantro and cumin :)

Pesto and Quinoa - a Happy Marriage!

I've been hearing about how wonderful quinoa (pronounced KEEN-WAH) is as a superfood. So of course I wanted to see what I could do with it. I was also craving pesto at the time and a google of "pesto" and "quinoa" brought me to Oprah's site. Specifically, her Quinoa with Pesto and Toasted Almonds recipe.

Here is my version of pesto's mating with quinoa:

1 tsp olive oil
2 cups quinoa (if you get the Ancient Harvest kind, you won't have to wash it)
2.75 cups chicken broth
2 tsp sized squirts of Gia pesto (comes from a tube) mixed with 2 tbsp of olive oil
two handfuls of chopped cherry tomatoes
two handfuls of spinach
as much pine nuts as you want to use (I sprinkled the top of each of my tupperware lunch servings)

Preparation (25 min)
1. Heat olive oil in pot over medium heat.
2. Stir in quinoa for about 7 minutes.
3. Add chicken broth. Bring to a simmer.
4. Cover pot and lower heat. Let quinoa cook for about 15 minutes or until most of the water has evaporated.
5. Stir in pesto and spinach and tomatoes. You'll get a fluffy colourful mixture.
6. Serve and top with pine nuts as desired.

Result: I love the pesto taste with spinach and tomatoes and pine nuts combined! Quinoa is a lot easier to cook than I imagined.

Pasta Salad - the First Attempt at a Self-Cooked Lunch.

This one was a rough suggestion by the beefy one for my first week at work. It's uber easy!

Simple Pasta Salad

approx. 3 cups of wholewheat pasta
2 tbsp Miracle Whip - the fat free kind (lowest in calories!)
sundried tomato dressing (I used the one by Kraft with extra virgin olive oil)
1 cup peas
1 cup sliced carrots
1 cup cherry tomatoes cut into quarters
1 can of chickpeas, drained
4 green onions, chopped
1/2 cup chopped red onion
a couple of handfuls of spinach
1 can of tuna

Preparation time (20 min)
1. Boil pasta to desired tenderness (13 minutes-ish).
2. Drain pasta in large colander and rinse and mix with cold water to cool.
3. Mix in vegetables and drained chick peas.
4. Mix in Miracle whip.
5. Pour in generous squirts of sundried tomato dressing. Mix!
6. Before eating, mix in tuna. If saving for later, keep tuna separate or else you will end up with a soggy mess!

Results: Tasty with lots of texture!