Quinoa + lentils + walnuts

Will you settle for this quickly snapped iPhone shot from this morning, taken while I was wearing a single sock and brushing my teeth?  I promise the dish is worth it.

Quinoa + lentils + walnuts

• .5 medium onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups water
• 1 can lentils (but surely some of those tiny red uncooked lentils would cook in just delightfully if added during step 2… just make sure you add more water as well)
• .5 cup chopped walnuts
• salt and pepper to taste

1. Saute the onion and carrot for 4-5 minutes.
2. Add the quinoa and stir for a couple of minutes, mostly because it’s just so lovely watching it get all toastedy.
3. Add water; cover; cook on low for 10-12 minutes.
4. When the quinoa is done, stir in the lentils and walnuts.

In other news: SPRING!  I know, I know–I have now jinxed it and the universe is already laughing at me as it plots a wicked blizzard in order to teach me a lesson. But oh!  I had a moment of pure bliss earlier today when, after stepping out of a store and instantly going into my defensive shoulders-to-ears posture, I realized that the air actually felt… nice.  And it smelled, as my friend put it, “almost happy.”

A week of beans

It’s been a week of beans chez Onepot.  So, if you don’t care for beans and/or feel compelled to go straight to the comments section to explain how they give you gas, you should probably just switch to some babies-and-cookies blog now and come back tomorrow.

Still here?  Onto beans, then.  A $3.71 bag of dry black beans, acquired on Sunday when Mr. Onepot apparently found a deal he could not turn down, has been transformed into three dinners and four lunches for the two of us.

First there was this:

• 1 giant, slightly intimidating heap of dry black beaks
• enough water to cover the heap in the pressure cooker
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 (slightly less than full; I was hungry) jar Trader Joe’s habanero+lime salsa
• 2 jalapeno peppers + 1 banana pepper, cut into ringlets of fire
• cilantro and scallions (you know, for prettiness)

Then I…

1. Cooked the beans in the pressure cooker for approximately 30 minutes post-whistle.  (Of course, this would work in a regular pot as well, but the cooking time will be different.)
2. Drained the beans.  While they were relaxing in the colander I…
3. Sauted the onion, garlic, carrot, and peppers in the same pot for 3-5 minutes.  And finally, I…
4. Added the beans and salsa; stirred; let it all simmer for another minute or so.

Night 1: the beans went into a tortilla with some hot sauce and queso fresco:

Night 2: the beans cuddled with some saffron couscous and rapini stir-fried with garlic and lemon:

Night 3: here they finally are, just gently revived with a can of chopped tomatoes, in a rice + beans interpretation:

Spinach + pear + quinoa salad with blue cheese and walnuts

Do you ever find yourself promising a dozen of your dearest friends homemade baklava?  And then, much later, realize that you need to spend a perfectly inconvenient weeknight elbow-deep in butter and sugar and nuts in order to keep this promise?

No?

Well, if you ever do, here’s what you should throw together for a quick dinner just after you’ve tucked the baklava into the oven and just before your blood sugar levels plummet below the safe-for-husband threshold:

• 2-3 fistfuls of fresh spinach
• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 2 pears
• 1 fistful of walnuts
• a toss of blue cheese crumbles
• a splash of balsamic vinegar