Black Bean Quinoa

Well, I went to the grocery store to get my ingredients for the lovely little dinner, helped myself to the salad bar at Whole Foods to make sure we had some greens, then for the second time this week, an item did not make it home with me after check out. The first time was with Mr. Max's anniversary card, girlfriend foul. Both items went with me to check out but for whatever reason, did not end up in the bag (and no, not in my car either) when I got home to unload. Insert a Cathy cartoon figure with squiggly lines emitting from her head.

I get home, decide I'm not heading back, and I needed to come up with something else to round out the meal. I looked around, turned to my tub of quinoa, grabbed a can of black beans from the pantry, opened my spice cabinet and got to work. I have to say, this is packed with protein and it was a great compliment to the chipotle-honey chicken and sweet potato dinner!

Grocery List:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 can black beans
• 1/4 cup onions, minced
• Olive oil
• 2 tbsp. lemon juice
• Chili powder
• Cumin
• Garlic powder

As we've discussed before, you cook 2 cups water to every 1 cup of quinoa. In a small pot combine the water and quinoa then bring to a boil. When it is bubbling, cover the pot and turn down the heat to medium-low. The quinoa will absorb the water and become nice and fluffy. At this point, I just started sprinkling my seasonings - cumin, chili powder, garlic powder. For the serving size that one cup uncooked quinoa fluffs up to, I have to guestimate that I used about 1 teaspoon of each - sprinkled some additional garlic powder at the end. Then I added nearly the whole can of black beans, draining the water from the can first.

I sauteed some onions with the chili powder and cumin for added flavor, then once translucent, added those in. I decided to toss the batch in some olive oil and add about 1 -2 tablespoons of lime juice.

Mixed this all together and ta-da, a bit of a pantry mix that turned out really well. The tastes blended with the main dish and as mentioned, this packed some serious protein, fiber and black beans are known for good source of iron too.