purplelara

pork with quinoa and black bean salad

We eat a lot of chicken.  A lot.  Last week I felt the hankerin’ for something different and decided on pork chops, but wasn’t interested in putting too much effort into them.  So I threw them in a baggie with some lemon juice, garlic and honey.  Marinated the suckers for an hour or so and threw ‘em on the barbeque.  End of fascinating pork recipe (it was good though).

I had a craving for a grainy salad to go with the pork and came across this one for a Quinoa and Black Bean Salad on epicurious.  Have you tried quinoa (pronounced keen-wa, not kin-oh-wah as Andrew likes to say)? It’s fantastic, it’s a SUPER FOOD!

I’ll post the original recipe (for the traditionalists) and note my modifications noted in purple italics:

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups super food…I mean quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans, rinsed
• 1 1/2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 cups cooked corn
• 3/4 cup finely chopped green red bell pepper (I though red would add better colour, as the jalapeños and cilantro are enough green)
• 2 pickled (ew) fresh jalapeño chilies, seeded and minced (I used one serrano pepper and two jalapeños, seeds and all, ’cause we’re spicy like that)
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh coriander (aka cilantro)(I used about half a bunch, as Andrew is a cilantro-freak)
  
• 5 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or to taste
• 1 teaspoon salt (really not necessary)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cumin, or to taste (cumin smells like armpit. Just sayin’)
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Prep:

Wash quinoa and drain in a large fine sieve.

(The following is the best way I’ve found to make quinoa. Don’t follow the instructions on the package, follow this).

Cook quinoa 10 minutes in a pot of boiling water.  Drain in sieve and rinse under cold water. Set sieve over a saucepan of boiling water (quinoa should not touch water) and steam, covered with a kitchen towel until fluffy and dry, about 10 minutes (check water level and add more water, if necessary). Remove from heat.

Once the quinoa has cooled, toss in beans, corn, bell pepper, jalapeños, coriander.

I used my Braun hand blender to whip up the oil, lime juice and cumin for the dressing.  I added about half the dressing to the salad right away and cooled it in the fridge for an hour or so, then added the rest of the dressing right before serving.

This makes a TON of salad.  We ate this two nights in a row and got a couple of lunches out of it as well.  When I hit the dregs of it, I mixed it in with scrambled egg whites and stuffed it all in a pita for Andrew’s on the run breakfast.

Great dinner:  Pork ***, Salad ****

Fat, calories, carbs etc (salad)