I totally blew off Sweetest Day this year.
Ermmm, our anniversary, too – oops!
We were away for the weekend, then getting ready to go away for the next weekend, and both just sort of flew by with little more than a nod in passing, so, as a bit of a mea culpa make up, I decided to make one of Rich’s favorite dinners: marinated, then grilled lamb chops, French peas, and…
what?
We were away and were gonna be away, so I had no potatoes in the house; and we’d just had basmati rice with chicken korma and naan, so that was out.
Hmmm. I still had about half a box of quinoa in the pantry leftover from making tabbouleh…
A quick run through da Google, and I had some ideas for a very nice side dish.
INGREDIENTS
•1/2 cup quinoa
•1 cup veggie stock
•1/2 large sweet onion, diced
•2 tbsp garlic roasted tomatoes
•Butter or olive oil
•Feta cheese
First things first, rinse your quinoa well; mebbe three times, or until the water runs clear. Then, for good measure, I soak my quinoa for 30 minutes, then rinse and set aside to drain in a fine sieve for a while.
Add your rinsed, soaked, and well-drained quinoa to a rice cooker, add the veggie stock, and push ‘cook’.
While the quinoa is cooking, melt the butter, or heat the olive oil, in a large skillet, add the diced onion, and sauté for ten minutes.
Remove from heat, stir in the tomatoes, and set aside until the quinoa is ready.
Once the quinoa is done cooking, allow it to rest in the rice cooker for 15 minutes, then fluff a bit with a fork and stir in the onion and tomatoes.
You can then either turn it out into a serving bowl or platter and toss with the feta, or spoon onto individual plates and allow folk to add the feta as they like.
Nice.
Simple.
Tasty, even.
And not a too, too bad way to recover from missing both Sweetest Day and my anniversary.
As an added bonus, any leftover quinoa can be tossed with leftover French peas to make a very pleasant salad for lunch the next day.
Nice and nicerer, if you ask me.