vegetable garden quinoa
As part of my Haitian culture, we eat a lot of rice. However, eating rice so often has been a detriment to my healthy lifestyle journey. So in order to cut back on my rice intake, I’ve been looking for tasty alternatives. A great substitute that I found has been quinoa. So for this recipe, I focused on making a vegetable-heavy quinoa with ingredients I already had in my house. This recipe is inspired from the Riz Jardinier, a rice made with ingredients found in your garden. My goal was to make it as colorful as possible with the vegetables, but somehow the quinoa’s color overpowered the vegetables’ colors. Either way, it turned out very delicious!
For this recipe, you will need:
2 cups of organic quinoa
2 cups of frozen mixed vegetables
1 cup of frozen spinach
1 cup chopped asparagus
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons of Haitian épis (recipe here)
1 tablespoon of Better Than Bouillon Organic Roasted Chicken Base
1 tablespoon of pink Himalayan salt
1 tablespoon of complete seasoning
2 cups of organic vegetable stock
2 cups of water
1/2 cup diced tomatoes
1/2 cup diced bell pepper
1 lime
2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro
Method:
Heat up the olive oil on medium to low in a medium to large pot. Mix in the épis, chicken base, complete seasoning and salt. Let those flavors fry for a few minutes before mixing in the mixed vegetables, spinach and asparagus.
Once the vegetables are cooked, add in the quinoia, vegetable stock and water. Mix it up all periodically.
Let it all cook for fifteen minutes until the liquid is all gone.
To complete the dish, once it has finished cooking, mix in the diced bell peppers and tomatoes and squeeze the lime all over the quinoa. Mix thoroughly and serve with your favorite protein and salad.
I made some air fried chilean sea bass that day to go with the quinoa. Check out the recipe here. It was all very delicious.
Please let me know if you decide to try this recipe. For a step by step video, be sure to check out my videos on social media.
