Brittany's Tabouli


1 cup quinoa, rinsed
2 1/4 cups water
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
4 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 cucumber, peeled and diced
1/2 medium yellow onion
2-3 Tablespoons minced garlic
1 1/2 cups spinach, chopped
1 cup baby peas
feta cheese crumbles (optional)
salt and pepper
2 Tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil


In a medium pan, bring water to boil and quinoa to a boil.  Turn down to medium to low heat, cover and cook for 16-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
While the quinoa is cooking, dice tomato, cucumber, onion and spinach.  When quinoa is done cooking, pour into serving dish and add lemon juice.  In the same pan used to cook quinoa, add extra virgin olive oil.  When that is hot, add onion and cook for 2 minutes.  Then add spinach and peas to pan and stir.  At this point, I put in 3 tablespoons of water and covered (just to make sure the peas had a hot bath to sit in and heat up).  But you don't have to do that if you don't want to.  When liquids have cooked out and it is heated through, add to quinoa.  Stir together. 
Place 1 cup quinoa mix on plate.  Top with tomatoes and cucumber.  You don't have to use feta cheese, though I highly recommend it.  I then drizzled a very small amount of extra virgin olive oil on top.  Sprinkled with salt and pepper.  


Serves 4-5

Vegetable Tian

*adapted recipe from Budgetbytes.blogspot.com

1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 Large yellow onion, finely diced

1 Tablespoon minced garlic

2 medium zucchini

1 yellow squash

1 large russet potato

2 large tomatoes

1 teaspoon dried thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1/2-3/4 cup Italian cheese blend

Heat oven to 400 degrees. 

In small pan, heat olive oil, garlic and onions.  Cook on medium to medium high heat until softened (about 5 minutes).

While the onions and garlic are cooking, thinly slice zucchini, squash, potato and tomatoes.  Spray 8x8 pan with cooking spray.  Add garlic and onion mix to the bottom of the pan and spread all over the bottom.  Place the thinly sliced vegetables in the baking dish vertically, in an alternating pattern. Sprinkle GENEROUSLY with salt, pepper and thyme. 

Cover with tin foil and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, top with cheese and cook another 10-15 minutes or until the cheese has melted and is golden brown.  

 Before being put in the oven!

 I almost ate dinner before taking a picture!  

This came out so perfectly yummy! 

 It was so pretty too!

I realized after I cooked it that I did not use the salt, pepper and thyme generously.  But I will next time! 

Fresh Zucchini and Roma Tomato Pasta
*modified recipe from starved-writer.com


1/2 box whole wheat spaghetti pasta
1 cup White Bean Alfredo Sauce (listed on this blog)
1/3 small yellow onion
1 zucchini, diced
2 roma tomatoes, diced
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon dried parsley
1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil

In a medium size pot, start some water over high heat.
While that is getting hot, dice up onions, zucchini, tomato.
Once the water is boiling, cook the pasta as directed on the package.
When the pasta is almost finished cooking, heat olive oil in frying pan over medium high heat. Add onions and zucchini and sautee to desired tenderness (I cooked mine for about 5 minutes and added about 2 Tablespoons of water after 3 minutes).  Add diced tomatoes, lemon juice and parsley.  Cook for one minute just to heat through.
Drain pasta and return to pan. Add white bean "alfredo" sauce to pasta. Mix in zucchini and tomato mix and serve.
Serves 2

 This is the veggies ready to be combined with the pasta.

The final outcome.  It taste wonderful!

Squaw Bread, avocado, onion and tomato sandwich


2 pieces toasted squaw bread (you can also use any whole grain hearty bread)
1 avocado, mashed up
2 thin slices red onion
2 roma tomatoes, sliced
extra virgin olive oil
rice wine vinegar
salt
pepper
dry basil


I toast up my squaw bread, then put the mashed up avocado on both pieces (half on each side).  I slice one tomato per piece of bread then top that with a few super thin slices of purple onion.  I use a few drops of olive oil and rice wine vinegar on each piece for a dressing.  Then I sprinkle with very little salt and pepper and top with some dry basil.  SOOOO good!

This is a different way to eat this recipe.  I found that dicing up the tomato and onion made it easier to eat.