healthy laps

Happy Weekend!!  Cheers.

My 2nd part of my lunch – the yogurt, granola and fruit – ended up being eaten a few hours later as a snack.  That salad that I had was super filling.

I did not have many veggies to use for dinner tonight, so we had to keep it simple.  My veggie options were asparagus, spinach and sweet potatoes.  I almost just threw everything together as a salad until I remembered that Heidi of 101Cookbooks just posted a simple asparagus recipe.

Tabasco & Asparagus Quinoa

see recipe here

(we all know how much I love my quinoa!  my pantry is always stocked with it)

I started by cooking the quinoa (1 cup of dry quinoa = 4 cups cooked quinoa).

Then got set on making the Tabasco Butter.  Yes, butter.  Butter is not the devil people, although lots of people think it is these days!  I wouldn’t go eating sticks of it everyday, but a little butter in your meals is not going to kill you. 🙂

I mixed the butter, dijon mustard, Tabasco sauce, lemon juice and salt in my mini food processor.

While making the butter, I also had a pot of water set to boil on the stove.  I took my asparagus and popped off the stems.

Then, chopped the stalks into 1-inch segments.

I dunked it into the boiling water for 1-2 minutes, just until bright green.  Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking.  At this point the quinoa was done!

How easy was all of that?!  All three steps took less than 15 minutes, which includes the quinoa cooking time.

Mix 3 tablespoons of the butter with the quinoa.

Then, stir in the asparagus and pine nuts (I used sunflower seeds).

Along with the quinoa, we had Low & Slow Sweet Potatoes.  Love these things!

They are so creamy and sweet.

I served my quinoa on a bed of spinach for a few extra greens.  This ended up being a really filling dinner.  I love when simple dinners are so satisfying!

Time to relax!

Filed under: Eating Laps | Tagged: dinner, quinoa |