Shrimp Lettuce Boats

Balancing working full time (with my school practical rotations), working out, hanging out with friends and completing assignments can be really difficult, especially when you enjoy eating healthy and preparing most of your meals from scratch. This is one recipe I like to make when I'm in a rush, and it gives me a good balance of vegetables, protein and a high-fibre carbohydrate.

Ingredients:
1/2 tsp red chili flakes
1 tsp hot paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp olive oil
~12 prawns
1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 of an avocado, cut into cubes
1 medium tomato, diced
3-4 large romaine lettuce leaves
1/2 cup of cooked quinoa (I used red but it doesn't really matter what type you use)

Steps:
1. Mix the olive oil and spices in a small bowl and set aside
2. Fry the prawns with a bit of cooking oil until they turn pink
3. Add the frozen corn and once it has almost completely cooked add the tomato, avocado, and top with the olive oil and spices.
4. On a plate lay out the washed romaine lettuce and fill evenly with the cooked quinoa. Top with the shrimp mixture.

Enjoy!
-A

Feature Friday: Gluten Free Quinoa Salad

This is our first ever feature Friday post! Our friend Heidi loves to eat healthy and experiment in the kitchen too, and she shared this awesome quinoa salad recipe with us. It looks delicious! Thanks Heidi! 

^^ look at all these fresh veggies ^^ 

Here's Heidi's recipe: 

Salad: 

- 2 cups cooked quinoa

- 1 can of chickpeas 

- 1 bunch of cilantro 

- 1 large green pepper 

- 1/2 of a red and 1/2 of a yellow pepper 

- 3 celery stalks

Dressing: 

- 2 part lemon juice, 1 part olive oil

- 2 tablespoons of honey- heat in the microwave for 10 seconds so it's easier to mix 

- 1 tablespoon of mustard

- chilli flakes or fresh chilies to taste

Directions: 

Cook 2 cups of quinoa in 4 cups of water over low heat. Chop veggies to desired size. Allow quinoa to cool and mix together!! It makes a ton of salad but it is really tasty! 

The recipe is gluten free, packed with protein, and is great as a side or a meal on it's own! 

Enjoy!

Heidi :) 

The Green and Beige Salad

This is probably one of the ugliest salads since there is a serious lack of colour as it is completely only beige and green, but do not discount it based on that; it is very healthy and easy to make on days you are in a rush. I love eating this salad as a complete meal for dinner when I am rushing home from school and off to work and it makes great use of any leftover chicken you may have. I used to make this recipe with couscous and to be honest it tasted a lot better with that but to increase the nutritional value I substituted it with quinoa and only use that in the recipe now.

Ingredients:
Romaine Lettuce (around 6 pieces off the stalk or if you have a premix you can use about half of the package)

1/2 of a leftover chicken breast (or if I'm making fresh chicken I like to season it with Jerk Seasoning)
~10 Croutons
Half of a large cucumber slices
1/2 cup of quinoa
1 tbsp olive oil
Lemon Herb Seasoning-I like to use brands with no added salt

Toss this all into a large bowl and eat! Quick, simple and healthy!

-A

Healthy Quinoa Jambalaya

This week Mel and I found out that we are going to be living 4 months together in Calgary for our last year of pharmacy rotations. This will give us tons of time to cook things together and be creative. I think we come up with some of the better recipes when we are together; I am more of the structured person in the kitchen, thinking logically before adding an ingredient and how much of each ingredient should be added, which sometimes can cause me to be less creative and miss out on adding different unique ingredients. Mel on the other hand has no patience in the kitchen and doesn't like to think about things before she does it so she just throws random ingredients in. This makes her recipes really unique with creative and cool ingredients but can sometimes make her recipes go awry.

This quinoa jambalaya is one of my favourite recipes we have made together and represents the balance between our two cooking styles when we work together.

Ingredients:
746 ml Can of Tomatoes
1 cup Quinoa
4 Chicken Chorizo organic sausage (we found this at the Strathcona Farmer's Market I'm not sure where else you can find it, so you can just replace it with normal chorizo if need be, it just won't be quite as healthy)
~1 1/2 cups Reduced sodium chicken broth
2 Large carrots
1 Onion
1 Red pepper
1 Jalapeno
2 stalks celery
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp each of: chili powder, cumin, red hot chili flakes, hot paprika
1 tbsp olive oil

Step 1: Empty the juices from the tomato can into a 2 cup measuring cup. Top off the remaining amount with the chicken broth until it makes up 2 cups. Bring to a boil in a saucepan and then add the quinoa. Turn to low and cook for 15 minutes.

Step 2: Chop the chorizo into about half inch thick pieces. Ours was frozen so we had to cook it a bit before we could do this. Chop the onion and cook with the chorizo until no longer pink.

Step 3: Have your sous chef chop up all the vegetables. We grated the carrots but chopped the rest of the vegetables and minced the jalapeno and garlic

This is my sous chef hard at work ;)

Step 4: Mix all the spices into a bowl with the oil and mix well adding it to the chorizo in the pan. Add all the vegetables to the onion and chorizo and cook for about 5 minutes- we both prefer our vegetables still a bit crunchy but if you like yours completely soft you can cook it for longer

Step 5: Add the can of tomatoes and the quinoa to the vegetable mix and simmer for about 10 minutes. Mel hates chunky tomatoes but I love them so we had to compromise and blended it up slightly with the immersion blender before adding.

We topped ours with green onions to serve

-A

Quinoa Breakfast Oatmeal

Quinoa for breakfast? Why not? I was thinking about new ways to incorporate quinoa into my day and I decided to try it for breakfast! Since it's a grain, I instantly thought about my staple breakfast, oats. I didn't want to completely substitute my oats for the quinoa, but I combined the two together. Quinoa is not only a great source of fibre, and a complex carbohydrate that fills you up and keeps you feeling full for a long time, but it'a also a great source of protein. I made my breakfast with half rolled oats and half red quinoa and it tasted great. The quinoa adds a little texture to the oats which was nice. 

What you need: 

1/2 cup of rolled or steel cut oats 

1/2 cup of quinoa 

2 cups of water 

Fruit to top - fresh or frozen 

Maple syrup 

Milk- almond, coconut, whatever you prefer 

Directions

Bring water to a boil, add oats and quinoa and turn temp down to low and cover pot with lid. Allow oats and quinoa to cook/steam in the pot for about 15-20 minutes. Tops with fruit, maple syrup and mil. Enjoy! 

-M 

Quinoa Tabbouleh

As a busy student, I’m always trying to think of recipes that I can make and eat as my complete meal. This recipe is a great substitute for a lunchtime sandwich. It utilizes parsley not just as a garnish but as it’s main ingredient, making this recipe low in calories, and the rich green colour represents it’s high content of nutrients, especially vitamin K and iron.

Ingredients:

1 cup of quinoa

A stock of parsley

One large cucumber

2 to 4 large tomatoes

one whole squeezed lemon

garlic

olive oil

½ tsp kosher salt

black pepper

There are two ways to prepare this recipe, the quick way, or the way that gives a better taste, if you have the time to prepare it this way. I typically do the short method so I will explain the longer way in brackets.

Step 1: Cook one cup of quinoa for 15 minutes. Take off lid, stir and let cool for 15 minutes, or if you live in a cold climate like I do, utilize that snow and stick your covered pot outside for 15 minutes. (the longer method has you adding the salt, pepper, lemon and garlic to the quinoa at this stage and setting in the fridge for 2 hours, allowing the quinoa to absorb the flavour)

Step 2: Mince the parsley, which is done easier with a Santoku knife. A food processor can also be used for this step, as it is a lot easier and faster but this seems to diminish some of the flavour from the parsley as it cuts the parsley finer, making it more watery. Add to a large bowl. Chop the tomatoes and cucumbers and add to the parsley.

Step 3: Dice around 4 to 5 cloves of garlic and mix with around 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil and the pressed lemon juice. Add the salt and pepper and add the entire mixture to the large parsley bowl. Warning! Will cause garlic breath. Garlic is an integral flavour in this recipe, but if you are concerned about garlic breath cut down on the number of cloves you use or completely eliminate the garlic from the recipe.

Step 4: Add the quinoa and mix all ingredients well.

Optional: To bring out the flavours and to slightly cut the bitterness from the lemon and garlic I add ⅛ tsp of brown sugar. I find this really enhances the flavours but you need to be careful not to over-do it because too much sugar will destroy the taste and ruin the recipe.