Quinoa and Red Beans

In an effort to eat healthier, I decided to build a concoction last night that sounded like a good idea. Quinoa and red beans.

First of all, if you've never made quinoa before, you're certainly missing out. Go get some immediately. Replace it for rice, and you'll never go back.

When I lived alone, I used to make brown rice and red beans all of the time as my meal, but always had to add a lot of salt (note: I love love love garlic salt, salt, anything sodium-y. 'Tis one of my many downfalls). Nicole always makes quinoa with broth instead of water, so I thought, hey, I can get my sodium fix, and see how this all turns out.

I put some olive oil in a pan (just a little), and chopped up a clove of garlic. Next time I'll put a little more in it, maybe three or four cloves. When the garlic was starting to become brown, I put in a cup of quinoa and 2+ cups of chicken broth. When we do our vegetarian month, I'll replace the chicken broth (which I had in the house) with vegetable broth (which I did not). I also added a pinch of chili powder and cayenne pepper (and Emeril's essence seasoning). Let that boil for a few minutes, then turned the stove down for it to simmer for about 20-25 minutes.

Okay, so I use canned organic red beans. I'm sure I'm supposed to avoid canned beans, but it's just so simple. Replace if you'd like with "real" beans.

After the quinoa, broth, and garlic simmered, and the broth was absorbed and evaporated, I poured two cans of organic red beans (drained, of course) into the pan. Let that cook for another five minutes or so, stirring, stirring, stirring. Voila.

I loved it. I'm loving it this morning as my leftovers (I didn't eat a "normal" breakfast before coming in to work today). I'm going to start making huge vats of it on weekends for my lunches during the school weeks. It packs a lot of protein, and while there is a bit of sodium, that's not the biggest deal in my world. Ah, well. Try it if you'd like.

Nicole reminded me that I haven't written about the race, so I'll need to do that over the next few hours. We survived! That's a big win. 5K this weekend in Boulder.