brunch recipe – Page 4

I absolutely love this recipe I came across over on Reclaiming Provincial. Although it’s meant to be a breakfast recipe, I’ve eaten it for every meal of the day. I love that it’s wildly adaptable to suit your tastes, easily doubled or tripled depending on the number of people you’re feeding, and it’s super simple to make!

If you’ve never cooked quinoa, today’s your day! And if you’ve never dared to say the word quinoa aloud, well, today’s your day for that too – it’s pronounced more or less like keen-wa. Say it with me – keen-wa – keen-wa – quinoa. Easy. It’s pretty much like cooking rice – the first couple times you’re not entirely sure if you’ve done it right, but you’ll get the hang of it! And it’s totally worth it – quinoa is this wonderful, healthy blank canvas that you can adapt to suit your preferences! It’s perfect if you like to have a vegetarian night every once in a while because it’s incredibly high in protein too.

This particular recipe calls for broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, and green onions, but you can use whatever you have on hand! It’s great if you have random veggies left in your fridge and aren’t sure what to do with them. My only tip is that you make sure you rinse your quinoa in a mesh strainer before cooking it – it can have a bitter flavor if you skip that step. Enjoy! Let me know if you adapt this recipe – I’d love to hear how you tried it!

Quinoa and Veggies

Adapted from Reclaiming Provincial

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Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 15 mins

Total Time 20 mins

Servings 1

Ingredients

1/2 cup quinoa rinsed
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup milk
handful of broccoli cut into bite-sized pieces
handful of mushrooms rinsed and sliced
handful of spinach
cheddar cheese or cheese of your choice
green onions diced
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

Heat a little olive oil or coconut oil in a pan over medium high and sauté broccoli and mushrooms till cooked, about 5 minutes. (Mine took closer to 10 minutes.)
Add spinach, stir, and remove from heat once slightly wilted.
While the veggies are cooking rinse your quinoa in a mesh sieve and drain.
Then combine quinoa, water, and milk in a sauce pan and bring to boiling. Immediately reduce heat to a simmer and cover. Let cook 8-10 minutes, or until done, stirring occasionally. Quinoa is done when you can see the little ring around each grain and it no longer crunches when you bite into it.
Once quinoa is finished, add veggies and combine. Salt and pepper to taste.
Serve topped with cheese and green onions.

Notes

This recipe is wildly adaptable according to your tastes! Add onions or bell peppers or tomatoes if you like! Top with feta and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette. Add walnuts and dried cranberries. Top with a fried egg! The possibilities are endless - Let me know what you try in the comments!

Saturday mornings are sort of a sacred thing in our home. It’s becoming increasingly rare that we have a free Saturday morning with nowhere to be, no wedding or engagement session to photograph, no video projects to work on, no school events to attend to. So when we are home on a Saturday, with no commitments to fulfill, we savor it. Or we try our best to at least.

During our year in Seattle Tim and I had crazy schedules – we were waking up before 3 AM to go to work and would see each other for a few hours before bed each night, just to do it all over again. It was awful. We are all about having time together. Even if we’re simply in the same room working on different things, it’s a thousand times better than if we were apart. I would venture to say I fiercely guard my time with Tim – when we’re apart I feel disconnected from him. He’s brings stability to our marriage where my wild imagination flutters about, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and all the ways they could go right. He encourages me when I dream big – he’s the practical one that’ll look for a way to make it happen. He gently challenges me when my naturally undisciplined nature takes over and I waste my energy on unnecessary things. And he helps me to focus when my thoughts are jumbled and confused.

After Seattle, we learned that we couldn’t do that again. The crazy schedules and the never seeing one another. Even if we had to make “career sacrifices” or anything of the sort, we knew we valued our time with one another more than that. Our typical Saturday morning routine stems from our need to connect and just spend time together after a long week of work (teaching for Tim, our photo/video business for me).

When we’re not off to a wedding or other event, we wake up slow. Tim makes coffee. I lazily get out of bed. On a good day I’ll make muffins or something that takes a little more time. On a morning when we’re hungrier, we’ll toast a bagel, grab a bowl of cereal, or scramble some eggs if we can stand being that patient. I’m trying to learn how to make an omelet, so that’s what I attempted last Saturday – an omelet with mushrooms, spinach, green onions, feta, and a little pesto on top. It was a semi-success. As in – it looked like an omelet till I flipped it. Oh well, at least it tasted delicious. One day I will conquer you, little omelet. But not today. Today is blueberry muffin day.

I encourage you to wake up slow tomorrow, stay in your pajamas, sip your coffee slowly, enjoy the aromas and the warmth of it all. Make something worth eating. Enjoy it with someone you love. Slow down and soak up the goodness of this day.

I for one am VERY excited about tomorrow – two of my college roommates are visiting for the weekend! We are very good at relaxing and drinking copious amounts of coffee when we’re together. I’m certain this will be a good weekend full of good food and great conversation. What are your plans for this weekend? Perhaps they should include these muffins!

Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Adapted from This Mommy Cooks

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Course Muffins

Ingredients

For the Muffins

1 ½ cups all purpose flour
¾ cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
Approximately 1/3 cup milk
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce only if needed or if substituting whole wheat flour (I didn't use it for mine)

For the Streusel Topping

2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs brown sugar
2 Tbs oats
2 Tbs and 2 teaspoon flour
2 Tbs butter cubed
¾ teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Combine flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.
Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the one cup measurement. Mix this with flour mixture.
If your mixture still seems dry, (or you use whole wheat flour instead of AP flour) add up to 1/2 cup unsweetened apple sauce.
If you're using frozen blueberries, gently toss the blueberries in about a tablespoon or so of flour to coat them. This will keep your whole muffin from turning blue. (I tried this method and my batter still turned blue. The muffins looked great when finished though!)
Fold blueberries into batter.
Divide batter into 12 greased or lined muffin cups.
Combine streusel ingredients and mix well with a fork or pastry cutter until crumbly.
Sprinkle over tops of muffins before baking.
Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes.