Friday Eats and a Quinoa Tabbouleh Recipe

Time to play catch-up! Today's post will feature my account of my Friday eats and the recipe to my Quinoa Tabbouleh.

Breakie was another batch of my oatmeal cookies. For some reason these took a bit longer than cook than usual. But they were still yummy! I added some flax seeds to this new version and I think I'll stick to that practice.


For lunch I once again met-up with the boy for a meal out. I ordered the house specialty - which amount to about half a grilled chicken breast with some shrimp and scallops on top in a bit of a pico de gallo type sauce. I ordered the side salad with this meal. It was pretty good but nowhere near as good as the quesadilla! lol I think I'll be hitting-up that other place again!


For dinner I made another batch of my quinoa tabbouleh-style and ate it with a portion of meat which I seared one my stove-top and finished off in my oven. It was delicious despite the fact that I over-cooked the meat a little. Want to see? Voila!


Note the complete absence of snacks. Good idea? Not so much! I was starving come dinner and narrowly missed a 3 PM slump (must have had something to do with the fact it was a Friday).

But I bet you're thinking "Enough about the food! Where is the recipe?" Fret not! :o)

Toronto Girl Out West's Quinoa Tabbouleh Recipe

Quinoa is very yummy and incredibly complex carbohydrate. In fact it has more protein than any other grain out there! Made from the seeds of the goosefoot plant it was traditionally eaten by the Incas (who clearly knew a good thing when they saw one). Today it's available in bulk food sections or at many grocery stores. If you can't find them there then head to your local health food grocer.

1. Grab your quinoa and measure out a cup of the grain

2 - I have read that depending on the type of quinoa you buy it can have a bit of a waxy build-up. If you cook it like that it will produce a slightly bitter end product. To be safe I washed my quinoa in water for about 10 minutes. (Steps 2-4 are optional but recommended)

3 - Once you have finished washing your grains strain them using a fine sieve or a cheese-cloth. If you're slightly less well equiped, like moi, use your hands to prevent the little grains from sliding out.

4 - I chose to toast my quinoa next. I cooked the quinoa, stirring frequently, over medium heat. Basically I was looking for a slightly golden colour. It took about 10 minutes for me to reach that point. Toasting your quinoa will increase the nutty flavour of the grain. If you want you could toast quinoa ahead of time and store (when cool) in a sealed glass jar. Or you could omit this step all together and your grains won't suffer too much.

5 - Cook your quinoa using 2 cups of water in your rice cooker. I like things easy like that! :o)

6 - While the Quinoa is cooking prep your ingredients. Take about half a cucumber and chop it into nice small pieces.

7 - Take a large tomato (or more if it's summer time and tomatoes are inexpensive to come by - the more the better) and cut into small pieces.

8 - Take a small handful of parsley and mint and chop both the herbs finely. These are going raw into your quinoa so make sure they're small enough to eat easily.

9 - When your quinoa is done let it cool slightly. Put quinoa in your bowl of choice. Add all your chopped ingredients into the bowl.

10 - Take half of a large lemon and squeeze into the ingredients. Try not to drool!

11 - Take 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil and mix it into your quinoa. Could it use more? Yes. But I'm trying hard to be good so I limited myself.

12 - Now this is the part that takes the recipe from good to am. az. ing. Take some goat's milk feta or goat cheese (goat cheese is naturally lower in milk fat percentage than cow's cheese). Cut a chunk of the cheese, I used about 1/3 of a cup of feta, and toss it into your quinoa. The heat will melt your cheese ever so slightly and make it happy, happy, happy!

13 - Stir all the ingredients and season with salt to taste. Enjoy!

This recipe takes a minimal amount of prep but yields delicious results. I was able to get multiple servings out of this one recipe. And I can't wait until summer when I can make this with beautiful ripe tomatoes.


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