Between filling in your roles as a mum and as a professional woman with a full time job, taking care of yourself can easily fall by the wayside. Fast, tasty and healthy meals can be a life saver. You think quinoa sounds healthy but doesn’t fit in the tasty category? I used to believe that too and have since found out that you can be super creative with quinoa and turn it into a delicious ingredient of easy to make meals. Today I tried yellow courgette which I’ve never had before.
Here is what you need (serves two – the 2nd portion also makes a great left-over):
- 1/2 cup of quinoa (I used Quico from Priméal which includes quinoa, red lentils and carrots – bought at Bio Planet); regular quinoa or a different quinoa mixture will work too)
- 1 red onion
- 1 good size yellow courgette
- hand full of pine kernels
- two hands full of cherry tomatoes
- coconut oil
- salt and pepper
- dry or fresh thyme
- garlic powder
- 1 – 2 little gem lettuce hearts (I get them in the Delhaize)
- 8 – 10 slices of parma ham
- home made salad dressing with lots of extra virgin olive oil
Here are the super simple instructions how to make it:
Cook the quinoa (15 min) in one cup of water without a lid. While the quinoa is cooking:
heat up some coconut oil in a frying pan on medium temperature.
Peel the onion and cut it in half (cutting from it’s base to its tip). Cut one half in small pieces and the other half in 6 wedges. Fry the pieces and the wedges until they go soft.
Meanwhile cut the courgette into pieces (I cut it into circles and then sliced the circles into sticks) and then add them to the onion. Season with freshly ground black pepper, salt (I like to use herb salt), thyme and garlic powder.
Add the pine kernels.
Add the quinoa to the vegetables when it’s done (the water should be completely gone). Taste to see if you need more of pepper, salt, thyme or garlic powder (don’t forget the salad dressing will add extra flavour).
Add the cherry tomatoes (cut in half).
Arrange about 5 leaves of the lettuce hearts on the side of the plates and place rolls of parma ham into their middle.
Spoon the quinoa mixture next to the lettuce and sprinkle everything with salad dressing.
The ingredients of this meal are a good source for:
- vitamins A, B6 and vitamin C
- magnesium, potassium and iron
- dietary fiber
- healthy fats
- and some protein too
Enjoy!
Extra tip!
Any left-overs are very tasty cold too. Just add some extra lettuce and tomatoes and if you like some more parma ham. If you keep the salad dressing separate it makes a great portable lunch as well.
A lunch box with cool pack, cutlery and separate container for the dressing makes it super easy to take left-overs to the office or school :-). The one you see on the picture is from Aldi, I’ve found plenty more by googling “lunchbox met koelelement”.
