Cranberry & chocolate quinoa muffins

I typically eschew muffins at breakfast, because let's face it, most muffins are basically cake, and cake is not a great way to start your day (well, nutritionally speaking). These hearty fiber- and protein-rich muffins, however, will take you through till lunch. The quinoa makes them chewy and dense, like bran muffins but tastier.
The recipe below is very slightly adapted from the one here from Martha Stewart Everyday Food (check out the site for a video of Martha and one of her minions making the muffins); I used dried cranberries instead of raisins, and also added chunks of dark chocolate.

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus more for pan
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
3/4 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 small bar (40g) of dark chocolate
3/4 cup whole milk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

To Make
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa and 1 cup water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, 11 to 13 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, brush a standard 12-cup muffin pan with oil; dust with flour, tapping out excess.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cranberries and 2 cups cooked quinoa.
5. In a small bowl, whisk together oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add milk mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined.
6. Crumble chocolate bar into small chunks, stir into batter.
7. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups.
8. Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool muffins in pan, 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Crockpot Roasted Winter Root Vegetables

Another good one from A Year of Crockpotting, found here, though I halved the recipe and used turnips and sweet potatoes instead of rutabagas. This one takes a little more prep, to wash/peel/cut up the veggies, but it's tasty. I ate this with quinoa for dinner (omg yet ANOTHER vegetarian meal! I'll need to get a pork recipe up here soon)

Ingredients:
~1 pound carrots
~1 pound turnips
~1 pound parsnips
a large sweet potato
-1/4 cup chopped parsley
-2 T olive oil
-1/2 tsp kosher salt
-1/2 tsp black pepper
-1/2 tsp basil

To make:
Peel and cut the veggies into 2 inch chunks.

Put all the vegetables into your crockpot, and add the olive oil, basil, salt, and pepper. Toss with your hands to coat fully coat the vegetables.

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4-5. The vegetables are done when they have reached desired tenderness.

Baked Sweet Potato with Garlic Green Beans & Quinoa

A vegetarian dinner omg :-0

I had a large sweet potato and a bunch of green beans that really needed to be used soon, and no meat in the house :-0 But this nearly all-plant-based dinner (there was butter involved) was tasty, filling, and pretty as well.

Baked Sweet Potato
Here I followed the instructions in the Cook's Illustrated Best Recipes cookbook, modified here for a single potato:
Scrub the potato and lightly prick with a fork.
Heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Rub the potato with olive oil (I used the lightly flavored kind, for sauteeing).
Put the potato on a foil-lined baking sheet.
Bake until a knife tip slips easily into the center of the potato, 40-50 minutes.
Dot with butter and season with a little pepper.

During the last ten minutes or so of the potato's baking time, I prepared the quinoa and garlic green beans:

To make the quinoa: Rinse 1/3 cup of quinoa in a strainer. Put quinoa and 2/3 cup water into a saucepan, bring to boil over medium heat. Lower heat a bit and simmer until water is gone (but no longer!)

To make the beans: heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a skillet/saucepan. Add about a clove's worth of minced garlic and cook for a minute or two. Add green beans and a handful of edamame (more green, and protein!), and about a tablespoon of butter. Cook and push around till the baked potato comes out.

Probably you could skip the olive oil with the beans, and just cook the garlic in butter (I just didn't think of adding butter till after I used oil)

First Dinner of the Blog

Salmon fillet cooked in olive oil, quinoa, steamed green beans

for dessert: Haagen Daz peach sorbet