Orzo Salad

I made this Orzo Salad from Super Natural Every Day with a friend who doesn't like cheese or pine nuts (two key ingredients in the pesto) and she had seconds!  I love a good vegetable pesto.  The pesto is made from broccoli, and there are also broccoli florets in the salad.  The creme fraiche in the pesto made it unique.  I've never used creme fraiche before - it's kind of a cross between yogurt and butter.  Kind of the consistency of yogurt, but tastes kind of like flavorless butter.  It's confusing, but I know that you can make cultured butter from creme fraiche, so I don't think I'm too far off here.

Sadly, this was not as good the second day.  Maybe it was too cold while I was eating it, but I was totally overwhelmed by the garlic, which didn't happen when it was fresh.  I liked it, but I'm not sure I'll make it again.

Roast chicken with sumac, onions and pine nuts AND Hassan's cracked potatoes with coriander

Sam and Sam Clark's Moro East is the featured cookbook for January and February over on the 101 Cookbooks library.  These are the first of (hopefully) many recipes from Moro East that I'll be posting about!  The book is gorgeous and the recipes are inspiring.  I look forward to learning a little bit more about some of the unfamiliar ingredients used in the recipes.

Of course, I have a story to go with this.  The recipe calls for a whole chicken cut into 8 pieces.  I've never cooked like this before, so I asked the guy at the meat counter at Whole Foods for a whole chicken that was already cut into the pieces.  I even confirmed what I was asking for.  And of course he sent me home with a whole chicken, cut into NO pieces.  I hid in the bathroom while Ken cut it up.  It was gross :(  However, now I know from experience that this is totally unnecessary.  If I wanted to use all chicken breasts or thighs or whatever, it would have turned out fine.

The Roasted Chicken with Sumac, Onions and Pine Nuts was delicious.  You brown the chicken, take it out of the pan and dump the extra fat, drop in some onions and sumac, put the chicken back, sprinkle with more sumac and pine nuts, and pop it in the oven.  Super easy.  I look forward to seasoning chicken with sumac in the future.  It has a slightly lemony, not-too-strong flavor.  I used frozen pearl onions, but next time I'll probably use small onions cut into 8ths for a stronger flavor and because the layers will come apart - I just think it'll be better.  I'll also use fewer pine nuts.  They are so expensive now!

Hassan's Cracked Potatoes with Coriander went nicely with the chicken.  My favorite part of the recipe was cracking the potatoes.  I got to smash them with the flat side of a meat tenderizer.  Not too much, just enough to make some cracks.  I love the orange-y fragrance of coriander.  The wine was a fantastic addition that I was skeptical about at first, but after it was cooked, it added a great flavor to the potatoes.  I should have halved the recipe, because it didn't all fit well in the pot, but it worked out alright in the end.

One thing I did NOT like about these recipes was that I could feel how high in fat they were.  I'd like to use some of these flavors in more healthy dishes.  Now I know to trust my instincts with these recipes and cut down on some of the less healthy parts of them.

Arugula Pesto, Two Ways

With all the arugula we got from our CSA this year, I had a few opportunities to make arugula pesto.  I tried a few different recipes from various sources.  (They are listed in the order I made them, not by preference.)

The first recipe I tried was one from my mom's new seasonal Cooking Light book.  (The recipe happens to be available online, here.)  This particular recipe uses pine nuts and Parmesan cheese.  Because I freeze my pesto, I exclude the cheese and just add it in when I actually use it - it freezes better that way.  The recipe also calls for lemon juice.  We tried it with regular pasta as well as ravioli.  It was good, but I wasn't blown away.

Next, I tried a recipe from the Williams-Sonoma book, New Flavors for Vegetables.  The recipe is for sauteed yellow pear tomatoes with arugula pesto and feta, but I made just the pesto since the tomatoes are not yet in season.  This pesto excludes cheese, because it's meant to be served with feta, and adds basil leaves.  Here, walnuts are used instead of pine nuts, and the zest of the lemon is used instead of the juice.  (I think I added a little splash of juice anyway, as I was multiplying the recipe and didn't have enough lemon zest.)  I tried this pesto only with a spoon, not in an actual dish (so far) but it was delicious and I liked it much more than the first recipe I tried.  I look forward to making the sauteed tomato recipe as intended.

Asparagus Salad

 I had this post all set up and ready to go.  All it needed was a picture.  When I copy photos over from my camera to my "food" folder I name them things relevant to the recipe, and I number them in case I have more than one.  I named this photo "aspsalad1" for asparagus salad, #1.

Much to my surprise I was greeted by a message asking me to rename the photo, since one already existed with that name.  I thought, hmm, maybe I misnamed the broccoli salad.

But no.  Apparently I have made this before.  With the radishes, too.  Last August.  Why didn't I remember this?

I went back and read my post about it.  It turns out I didn't like the radishes and I undercooked the broccoli.

I think it's funny that I blocked it out like that.  I haven't been cooking long, and I haven't cooked much in that short amount of time, but I made the same dish twice without even realizing.

Anyway, I used the asparagus salad recipe from 101 Cookbooks.  I should not have bought broccoli and asparagus, because they are ALMOST in season here, but I was craving some vegetables.

I do not like radishes.  Somehow THIS I remembered, so I skipped them.  The dressing was the best part... pine nuts are delicious.

I ate this all by itself because I was too lazy to make a grain or pasta to go with it.  (I also ate the entire thing in one sitting.)  I think a handful or two of a small pasta shape would work well here.  It would also be fun to experiment with some other vegetables.

Maybe next time I will remember that I already made this and already posted about it...

Spinach Rice Gratin

Ken requested something hot for dinner last night, and I had just seen a recipe for Spinach Rice Gratin while browsing 101 Cookbooks. It looked delicious and I wanted to try it.

I used Lundberg Countrywild rice blend instead of plain brown rice. It has three types of rice in it so it gave it a little extra flavor and texture. Cooking the rice took the longest - other than that, the recipe was pretty quick and easy. It calls for pre-cooked rice, so I had to make it myself, but I think next time I make rice for something I will probably make extra so that I can make this again.


This is basically a rice casserole, and it was delicious. It held together really well, which is probably due to the 3 eggs in it. It also contained tofu, but since it is crumbled and mixed it with everything else, you can't even really tell unless you know what you are looking for. This is a great way to sneak tofu into someone who refuses to eat it.


This was a delicious, warm comfort food kind of meal. I think it would be great for fall or winter, and maybe even Thanksgiving. I will definitely be making this again. I would love to try baking it in a muffin tin instead of a casserole dish to make individual and freezer-ready servings. It held up really well in the freezer so I think it would be a perfect go-to lunch.

Basil Pesto (Pesto Genovese)

I went to visit my Nonna today and she has basil growing rampant all around her backyard. I asked her if I could take a big bunch to make pesto and she gave me a LOT. Using the recipe from my favorite big green book (How to Cook Everything Vegetarian) I made a triple batch.

First, I made a double batch. It was so easy - just throw everything in the food processor and go, adding a little more oil when you take off the top to scrape down the sides. I used this double batch to freeze in an ice cube tray. I have read this trick somewhere to make individual servings of pasta with pesto. I think one or two cubes would do the trick. When they are fully frozen, I will pop them out of the tray and just toss them in a plastic bag. I might wrap them individually but if they are already frozen they probably won't stick together anyway.

One thing to remember is that you need to add Parmesan when using the pesto. I have heard that it doesn't freeze well, so I guess the best thing to do would just be to stir it in when you defrost it. I stirred it in to the batch I made for the pasta but didn't realize I would have a little left over. The recipe says to only stir it in when you are about to use it, but I will have to see how it keeps in the fridge. Another thing I might try doing differently next time I make pesto is to toast the pine nuts. The recipe didn't call for it and I wanted to just stick to it this time, but I think toasting them might bring out the flavor more and add more dimension to the pesto.

When I was done with this I still had more basil left, and it was about enough for another single batch. Ken suggested we have it with the whole wheat pasta we picked up this weekend. I don't remember if I've ever had true whole wheat pasta, but I have heard that it is substantially different from traditional pasta.

The whole wheat pasta with pesto turned out pretty yummy. Whole wheat pasta is definitely a different texture and feel from traditional pasta, so get some olive oil or something in there ASAP after straining. It was a little thicker and denser, but was very good with the pesto. I definitely want to try the whole wheat pasta with the Rustic Pine Nut Sauce - but back to the pesto... I would definitely have it again as a quick, easy, last-minute kind of meal. There is a good amount of olive oil in there though, plus the Parmesan, so don't go overboard with it. I would also like to try it for other uses than just pasta, but not much comes to mind right now. If you have any suggestions please let me know!

Asparagus Salad

I know what my mom is going to be thinking when she reads this - "asparagus is out of season!!!" Well, I saw some nice looking ones at the store and I have been wanting to try this Asparagus Salad, so I picked them up. I just couldn't wait until next year! I had also seen radishes at the farmer's market over the weekend so I went back and got them today just for this recipe. I also made some plain barley to give it some more heft as a dinner meal.

The sauteed broccoli and asparagus were nice, because they both taste better cooked. The radishes added an interesting color and dimension but they were way too large (the recipe specifies tiny radishes for a reason, I guess). The lemon pine nut dressing was delicious, although it did take two tries to properly toast pine nuts. (Oops!)

Barley takes forever to cook, and I have pearled barley, so it could have taken even longer. For a weeknight, that is no good. Luckily you can make grains ahead of time and reheat them from the fridge, so I saved some for my next endeavor.

Overall, I was not crazy about this salad. Maybe I built it up too much because I really wanted to try it. My favorite part was the asparagus. It was perfect. The broccoli could have been cooked a little more, but that's my fault for not putting it in by itself first. The dressing was delicious and you can easily serve it over any vegetable. I have never had radishes before (that I know of/remember), and they were OK. They were pretty boring. Now that I think about it, they sort of reminded me of water chestnuts, which I really don't like at all. I also wish I could have tried broccolini, but I don't remember ever having seen it anywhere. If you want to add barley (or other grains) to this, I would use just a few small spoonfuls and mix it in thoroughly. I probably won't be making this again. It was OK, but I guess just not what I was looking for!

The good news is that I still have broccoli and asparagus to experiment with something new! I just finished reading Food Matters by Mark Bittman (it's a quick read, since half of it is recipes anyway) so I am trying to keep more fresh produce in the house, and using whatever pantry items I have on hand to turn them into meals. The overall idea of his book is to eat more plants and less meat/dairy products, which is much healthier, so I am giving it a try.

Rustic Pine Nut Sauce

The recipe for Rustic Pine Nut Sauce can be found on page 796 of How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. Since it's a copyrighted recipe from a book I can't copy it in here, and obviously I can't link to it either. Some of the pages of the book are available on Google books, but unfortunately page 796 is not one of them. So you will have to follow along as best you can knowing only the ingredients and what I did with them!

This sauce was on a list somewhere else in the book of sauces that would go nicely with whole wheat pasta. We used Barilla Plus, which I was expecting to be a little whole wheat-ier than it actually was, which is probably because it isn't whole wheat pasta. Anyway, that was my motivation for making this sauce. Another plus is that the ingredients don't go bad that quickly. The sauce includes chopped pine nuts, chopped basil or parsley, bread crumbs, red onion, garlic, salt and pepper, olive oil, and wine (red or white). Optionally, you can add capers, but I don't like them that much, so I left them out. One of the cool things about this book is all the variations offered on each recipe. One of the variations I wanted to try was the lemony version, which calls for replacing the wine with lemon juice, and the capers with lemon zest. I wanted to use wine, though, so I decided to add only the lemon zest, since it is one of my new favorite flavors. Ken helped a little by slicing up the onion for me. My poor little basil plant is dying, I think, because he is very droopy lately, even though I set him up outside where he might actually get some sun. I took several leaves from the plant for the sauce, so at least I will get some good use out of him. I never had a green thumb; all plants in my care die shortly after I get them. :(

I cooked the ingredients, following the recipe as closely as possible. The cooking times in the recipe seemed a little too long, so I moved things along a little more quickly. I also halved the recipe because I only had 1/2 the amount of pine nuts, and we are only two people (most recipes feed 4). Towards the end of cooking, I added the halved amount of wine. It disappeared almost instantly! At this point I became very concerned. How could this be a sauce? It had no liquid! I added more wine, and more olive oil. It just fizzled right out. I was getting nervous, so I picked up a bit and tasted it. It was a little strongly wine flavored, but good. After a few minutes I turned off the heat and stirred in the basil. We decided to just use it as is and hope it was good.

I mixed the "sauce" in with my pasta as well as I could and made sure to get some in every bite. Lucky for us, it turned out delicious. This is when we realized what "rustic" means. It doesn't have to be liquidy to be a sauce! Plus, pine nuts are a little creamy as is, which gives a very nice texture to the sauce. It was some wonderful chunky goodness. I think the lemon zest was a nice little touch and I didn't feel that I was really missing anything by leaving out the (optional) capers. I might try this with lemon juice, but the wine turned out quite good. (I used some Fish Eye Pinot Grigio left over from a while ago. This is a cheap brand and has a screw top, so if you keep it in the fridge it should be fine for cooking, or even drinking, up to a few weeks. That way you can use a little at a time, as needed, and you don't have to open a new bottle for each recipe.)

I wish I could post the recipe for you... but I don't think it would be copyright violation for me to share it with you privately - so if you would like the recipe, I would be happy to share my cookbook. However, it is a fantastic reference book, so I highly recommend looking into obtaining your very own copy.

Baked Pasta Casserole - Remix

Since I had another bag of spinach left from last Friday I have been meaning to try making the Baked Pasta Casserole again, to make it more freeze-able. I have had absolutely no time to do this, but today when I saw that the spinach had kept in its plastic bag for an entire week, we decided it needed to be done. Ken kickstarted the process by washing and chopping the spinach so that we HAD to make it tonight. (We already ate, but we will have this for lunch tomorrow, and if it turns out the way I want it to we will also try to freeze it.)

Ken wasn't here when we made this last time, so he didn't know what it was supposed to look like. For convenience he decided to chop the spinach in the food processor, so it ended up in really little tiny pieces - almost pureed. He chopped up the onion and pressed the garlic; I zested the lemons and shredded the mozzarella. After our pasta almost boiled over, I tossed it very generously with olive oil, since there is no sauce in this recipe.

The major variation that I made was adding ricotta cheese. I used about one 15 oz container. I mixed half of it with half of the shredded mozzarella, rather than layering the mozzarella by itself in the middle of the dish.

Because this is a pretty big variation and I am linking to the original, I am going to actually post my recipe for once!

1lb short pasta (here, I used fusilli)
1 big bag of spinach, washed, and thick stems removed
1 yellow onion
a lot of olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, minced/pressed
1 cup pine nuts, toasted
zest of 2 lemons
15oz ricotta, split in half
8oz mozzarella, grated

1. Boil the water and cook the pasta for about 1.5 - 2 minutes less than the package directions. When cooked, drain and mix in olive oil to coat.
2. Chop the spinach and onions into very small pieces (separately); spinach can be almost pureed in a food processor to make tiny pieces.
3. Heat olive oil in a large pan and sautee the onions for a few minutes (longer if you would like them to be caramelized).
4. Add the garlic to the pan (you can press it right into the pan if you want, or add it in with the spinach).
5. Add the spinach. Cook for maybe 2 minutes, depending on how big your pieces are and how you like your spinach.
6. Remove the pan from heat and add the pine nuts and 1/2 of the zest. Mix together.
7. Dump the pasta into the pan and mix well.
8. In a 9x12 (or similar size) baking dish, rub olive oil on all sides with a paper towel, then sprinkle the rest of the zest on the bottom of the dish.
9. Mix 1/2 of the ricotta with 1/2 of the mozzarella.
10. Put a thin layer of pasta in the baking dish. Top with spoonfuls of ricotta, using all of the plain ricotta and trying to spread it out (if it's cold enough, you can kind of flatten it with your hands).
11. Add another layer of pasta and top with spoonfuls of the ricotta/mozz mixture (use all the mix).
12. Add a third and final layer of pasta and sprinkle mozzarella on top.
13. Cover with foil and bake at 375 F for about 30 minutes. If you want to brown your mozzarella a little, you can take off the foil in the last few minutes of baking, but it should melt fine without removing the foil.

So - why the ricotta? I want it to freeze. The extra olive oil may help with that too, hopefully, but the ricotta in baked ziti kind of envelops the pasta and keeps it safe in there. I was counting on the ricotta kind of melting around the pasta and doing just that. It didn't really melt that much - I think next time I might have to find a way to thin it out, maybe by beating an egg into it or something.

You will also have two naked lemons when you are done making this dish. Lucky for you, this is a fun problem to have. I like to cut them into wedges and use them in water and iced tea. You could use the juice to keep a fruit salad fresh. Or you can try my Cucumber Feta Salad recipe, or something else that uses lemon juice. The zest is so worth it in this dish - don't skip it just because you will have naked lemons.

If you are pressed for time or just don't like baked pasta dishes, you can stop right at the step where you mix the pasta into the big pan. That would be a good time to sprinkle some mozzarella, or maybe parmesan or something and just serve it that way. It's almost like an un-blended spinach pesto at that point. The pine nuts add a little textural variation. Any twisty kind of pasta will be perfect for letting the spinach pieces get stuck in them.

So how did this variation turn out? Well, I baked it late at night so I couldn't really try a proper slice. I just put it in the fridge. When I woke up in the morning, I realized that there was more stuff in the pan than in the original recipe, but I hadn't added any time to the baking. The ingredients aren't really raw ingredients that need to be cooked, but I had to wait until lunch to see how it really turned out. Lucky for me, it is yummy! I did not have enough time this morning to put any in the freezer to see how it goes, but I will try it later today. I suspect that the middle pieces will freeze okay because of the greater volume of cheese, so first we will eat the end pieces where there is less cheese.

Baked Pasta Casserole

I have been dying to try some of the recipes from 101 Cookbooks. I have several bookmarked to try, but the Baked Pasta Casserole really caught my attention. (Please click on the link and look at the picture - it is so pretty!) I like baked ziti a lot, but sometimes all the cheese and sauce can be really heavy, and since I sometimes put meat in it, that makes it even heavier. This light pasta dish has spinach and not too much mozzarella, and no tomato sauce. It wasn't too much work, either.

Montana is an expert chopper so she chopped up the spinach into small pieces. She also cut the onion using Alton Brown's tip to cut it next to the lit burner on your stove - it helps to not make you cry, and it really works!

I toasted some pine nuts (this was a substitution we decided to make - the recipe actually calls for almonds), and shredded the mozzarella. I also zested 2 lemons. This was one of my favorite parts of the dish - the hint of lemon from the zest. The recipe mixes some of the zest in with the spinach, and uses the rest sprinkled on the bottom of the pan. You can sprinkle zest on the bottom of any baked casserole like this to give it a little something extra.

We cooked the pasta a little less than the pasta box directions - about 7 minutes, instead of the 9 recommended for al dente. This worked out really well because the pasta goes into the oven and gets cooked more. If we hadn't drained it early, it probably would have gotten mushy, and who likes mushy pasta? We also used regular pasta - I'm not sure how I feel about whole wheat yet, and I don't feel like paying a lot for pasta when I can get it for 33 cents a box!

I really like the onions in this dish. They are sauteed with the spinach and garlic, which gives the final product an extra dimension.

The dish turned out well overall, although we agreed that it could have used a little more oil. If I make it again (and I probably will soon) I want to try adding ricotta to cover the pasta a little more. One thing I really like about traditional baked pasta dishes is that I can freeze them in individual portions and have one whenever I don't have time to make anything, or I can bring it with me for lunch. I want to rework this dish a little to make it freezable - since there is no sauce, it definitely won't freeze well. Another recommendation in the recipe is that if you don't want to bake it, you can just toss the pasta with the spinach mix and serve it with mozzarella sprinkled on top. I might try this too, although I would probably use some parmesan or something similar instead of mozzarella, and I would use a lot less of it. There are endless possibilities to vary this recipe, which is one of its greatest qualities!

Again, I forgot to take a picture because I was just ready to eat it all! Check back later to see if I remember to post a picture of the reheated leftovers. If you want to see it now, click on the recipe link and look at those beautiful photos.

Pret "Salad" Sandwich

This sandwich was inspired by one of my very favorite sandwiches at one of my very favorite places to have lunch in NYC. I like to bring my lunch because of all the calories, sodium, and who knows what else in takeout food around the city. But I (re)discovered Pret A Manger, which I had been to several times for lunch in London. They use only natural ingredients, no preservatives, and they donate their leftover sandwiches and stuff at the end of the day. This is a nice healthy alternative to the takeout options that my coworkers usually eat (although some of them go to Pret sometimes, too).

If you visit Pret's website you can find some "DIY Recipes." Some of them are totally impossible for me to make, if not for the lack of availability of ingredients, then for the metric measurements. But I had seen the Pret Salad Sandwich recipe on the site, and was so excited when they featured it as a weekly special in the store I go to in NYC. It consists of hummus and some veggies on whole wheat bread - delicious! I thought this would be a quick and easy thing to make for our light lunch. I was already chopping up cucumbers for my go-to salad, the Cucumber Feta Salad, so I set some aside for the sandwich. The cucumbers were from my Nonna's backyard, so yum - local food! I also chopped up some red pepper, and I used a few leaves of the spinach I had picked up for the pasta dish. I spread the hummus on the bread, sprinkled on some pine nuts, layered the veggies, and voila! Pret Salad Sandwich DIY in my own home. Easy peasy. I used Sabra hummus (the one with the pine nuts, for consistency) but sometime I would like to try making my own lemony hummus concoction. I meant to add some thin slivers of red onion to the sandwich, but I forgot. Oops!

I served the sandwich with a little of the salad, and since we were going for a light lunch I just made one sandwich for us to split. It was the perfect tiny portion to hold us over before we went on our very fruitful adventure to Whole Foods.

Quinoa and Pine Nut Pilaf with Light Tilapia

Last time I went to Whole Foods, I picked up some quinoa. I have been reading a lot about whole grains and other fun stuff and today I decided to try it. I made a Quinoa and Pine Nut Pilaf from the Food Network website, with a little modification based on what I had on hand. Although quinoa itself is a complete protein, I decided to also make a light tilapia to go along with it.

Quinoa (pronounced "keen-wah") is actually a seed. As I said, it is a complete protein, which means it gives us a balanced set of essential amino acids, and this makes it a great choice for vegetarians and vegans. NASA is considering it as a crop for long-term space flights because of its nutritional value. This was my first time trying quinoa, but I liked it because it just looked so... cute! A way to tell if your quinoa is cooked is to look for little white fibery threads wrapped around each seed.

This pilaf recipe was a real test for me. I have never cooked with quinoa before, and I don't generally do well with doing multiple things at once. First I had to rinse the quinoa. It has a natural protective layer on it, which isn't really yummy to eat. The recipe says to put 1 cup of rinsed quinoa with 2 cups of chicken stock in a pot, bring it to a boil, and then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes. I used one can of stock, which is 14.5 ounces -- less than 2 cups. I am also not very familiar with what boiling looks like when it's not water alone. I turned the heat down a little too late. Luckily, I checked the quinoa after about ten minutes. Perfect timing! Meanwhile, I cut 1/2 of an onion and cooked it in olive oil after toasting 1/4 cup of pine nuts. I mixed both in when my quinoa had finished cooking. The recipe also calls for fresh parsley. I didn't have that, so I thought I would use dried. For some strange reason, we don't have any. I put in some oregano instead, since I would be using it with the tilapia. I was nervous about how much to add and it ended up very underseasoned, despite the salt and pepper I also added. I liked the quinoa itself, but I would also like to try cooking it with water to see what it tastes like without the chicken broth flavor. I also ended up with way too much quinoa pilaf left over. The recipe says 6 servings, and the quinoa box says 2. I think it was closer to six.

My "light tilapia" comes from a recipe I found online a long time ago (but can't find now). I have made it several times in the past because it is so easy. The only difference between my version and the official recipe is that the recipe has amounts and measurements, and I use estimates and sprinkles. I get tilapia filets frozen and individually wrapped. I use hot water to defrost them just enough that they are flexible enough to work with. I know that's the wrong way to defrost things, but it works really well for last-minute meals, especially with these individually frozen fish. I put aluminum foil on a baking sheet, rinse the fish and pat dry, and lay it on the foil. I press 1 or 2 cloves of garlic and spread them on the fish as evenly as possible. Next, I sprinkle on some dried oregano, and a little less dried basil. I top it off with grated parmesan and a sprinkle of kosher salt. Put it in the oven for 8 minutes at 400 degrees. That time and temperature are exactly perfect to cook tilapia. It always comes out wonderful that way.

I needed a vegetable, so I heated up some frozen green beans in the microwave. I like to keep frozen vegetables on hand because you never know when you will need to add a veggie (like today), and they also are awesome for quick last-minute stir fry.

The meal as a whole was pretty good. Since the quinoa was so underseasoned, I took bites with the green beans and with the tilapia, which made it tastier. I will definitely be cooking quinoa again. Unfortunately I was not able to take many pictures this time, since I constantly had my hands full!