What is quinoa? Up until last week I had no idea. Our family is on a grain adventure and one of the grains we tried this week was none other than red quinoa. This grain is a power packed amino acid. It has a large amount of magnesium and riboflavin. It apparently was the “gold of the Incas” giving warriors more stamina. It gave us a good laugh as we all looked at it with concern and considered ordering pizza. I am proud of us, however, we went through with cooking quinoa and the result~ we absolutely loved it!

Please, trust me, this is a grain to bring into your kitchen.

What you will need for Quinoa and Black Beans:

1 teaspoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

What to do:

Step one~
Chop your onion and place it into some olive oil in a pan. Add a bit of garlic.

Step two~
Add 3/4 cup of the quinoia. Admire it as you toss it in! Those tiny grains are going to do good things!

Step three~ Add 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock/broth.

Step four~ Add your cumin and cayenne pepper. I love the smell of cumin! It makes me happy. LET THE QUINOA cook for TWENTY MINUTES. Those little grains will actually pop open a bit. Cute little guys….

Step five~
Drain and rinse your black beans. Set aside one cup of corn. Chop your cilantro. Add them to the quinoia and stir.

Step six~
Be proud of yourself for cooking something new!

We ate the Quinoa with a little bit of salsa. We also filled a whole wheat tortilla with avocado. This was a vegetarian meal, super healthy and oh oh oh so good!

I got this recipe off of www.allrecipes.com. I modified it by only adding in one can of black beans. The original recipe called for two. We did not find the necessary at all.