Thursday 17 January 2013

Recipe- Quinoa with Sweet Potatoes and Goat Cheese

Another thing that I absolutely LOVE is cooking. I like to cook as often as possible and luckily enjoy doing so. I'm always looking for new recipes and trying my own things too. I often find a recipe and alter it to whatever I like/have in my fridge at the time. I give full credit for this recipe to my beautiful sister, Lana. THANK YOU for this recipe. It has become a favourite of mine and I just have to share it. This is a quinoa salad, with pretty much all the tastiest ingredients you could ask for all put together in one delicious dish. This can be a meal on its own; containing sweet potatoes, chick peas, goat cheese AND quinoa... you will not be lacking on protein, that's for sure. It could also go alongside fish, chicken... anything that you love to eat really. That's why cooking is amazing.. there are no rules. Just you, your tastebuds, and your imgination.

Here's what you'll need

2 Medium Sweet Potatoes
2 Cups Water or Vegetable Stock
1 Cup Quinoa
4 Green Onions
2 cups chickpeas
½ cup Soft Goat Cheese
¼ cup Fresh Basil
6 TBSP Light Oil of your choice (I used Vegetable Oil)
3 TBSP Apple Cider Vinegar
1 teaspoon each salt and pepper



To start you want to cook your sweet potatoes. If you have the time, cook them in the oven. Preheat your oven to 425 F. Prick the sweet potatoes with a fork and cook them with the skin on for about 45 - 60 mins. Then let them cool, peel them, and cut them into 1/2 inch cubes.

If you DON'T have the time, peel your sweet potatoes, cube them, and MICROWAVE them. Put the cubes in a microwave safe dish, and put saran over it (yes, if you were wondering, you can put saran in the microwave. Just don't let it touch your food). I cooked mine for a total of 10 minutes, but I have an extremely old and probably weak microwave, so it might be less for you. I cooked mine for 3 minutes at a time, poking them to see if they were done, and adding more time when necessary.


While your potatoes are cooking, you're going to cook your quinoa. If you are using water, or have a stock that is already made, then you can skip this next step. I'm using a vegetable bouillon, so I boiled 2 cups of water, put my bouillon in, and then set it aside in a different dish.


In that same pot, put 1 tbsp of olive oil in the bottom and put your heat to medium. Pour your quinoa in DRY, and stir the quinoa constantly until you hear some crackling sounds. Be very careful with this step, and don't put your heat up too high or it will burn, and not taste good at all. After you've done that for just a couple minutes, pour in your water or stock. 


Put your heat on high to bring it to a boil, and then immediately turn down to low and put a lid on. If you've never cooked quinoa before, it cooks like rice. You know it's done when all the water is absorbed. Check on it every 5 minutes or so. When all the water is gone, fluff it with a fork.

Chop your green onions and basil, and rinse your chick peas.


Now that all your ingredients are prepared, you want your quinoa and sweet potatoes to cool down. You can definitely add them in hot, and make this a hot dish. I personally prefer it cold, especially because I like the goat cheese to stay crumbled, and not melt. When you don't have a lot of time, you do what you gotta do to speed up the process. Such as placing your ingredients in front of an open window... hahaha. Luckily it was not a typical winter day when I made it this time, so I could do this without freezing anything!


Then combine your quinoa and sweet potatoes with your chick peas, green onions, basil, and crumbled goat cheese. Then pour over your oil, apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper. And voila!


Bon appetit!



5 comments:

  1. Yum! Will have to try this :)

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    1. You really should! Delicious.
      Miss you Cady! Hope life is good :)

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  2. I've been waiting for you to post this - I LOVED it when you made it for us :) Love you! xo - Alanna

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    1. This is the one I posted back in January! Another recipe today too :) Love youuu!!

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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