Quinoa + lentils + walnuts
March 10, 2010
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
- Saute the onion and carrot for 4-5 minutes.
- Add the quinoa and stir for a couple of minutes, mostly because it’s just so lovely watching it get all toastedy.
- Add water; cover; cook on low for 10-12 minutes.
- 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
January 7, 2010
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…
- 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.)
- Drained the beans. While they were relaxing in the colander I…
- Sauted the onion, garlic, carrot, and peppers in the same pot for 3-5 minutes. And finally, I…
- 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
October 30, 2009
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