Wednesday 8 October 2014

Cheesy quinoa cakes with roasted veggies



I love using quinoa in place of rice or pasta because it's so much healthier, but my husband has never been a fan of the magical South American grain. That changed with this recipe. Apparently, all that was necessary to make quinoa palatable for him was to add cheese and fry it. In general, those two actions make any food taste good.

This was a really easy recipe to whip together, once I got the quinoa cooked. The Kitchn has a good tutorial on cooking quinoa if you've never done it.

Then, I tossed some fresh vegetables (tomatoes, red peppers, onions and mushrooms) with olive oil, fresh garlic and paprika and popped them under the broiler for about 10 minutes. While they were roasting, I made these cheesy quinoa cakes, halving the recipe and adding 1/2 c. each of frozen corn and pinto beans. I used Asiago cheese.I added a little side salad made of mixed greens and homemade ranch dressing. I used that ranch recipe as a base and added dried parsley, salt, pepper and nutritional yeast. The ranch also was delicious drizzled over the quinoa cakes.

Easy, peasy, vegetarian weeknight dinner. I will definitely be making this again.