Quinoa with Beets, Red Onion, Shitake Mushrooms and Snap Peas + Roasted Potatoes

This is one of my favorite ways to eat. Super vegetable-y and delicious. First, I cooked the beets in vinegar, water, salt and sugar in the oven until they became tender but NOT mushy!! Next, I sautéed a small red onion in olive oil before adding in roughly chopped snap peas and shitake mushrooms. In a separate pot, I cooked the quinoa until just done. When the beets were ready, I mixed everything together with a little lemon juice, olive oil, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper. Served with a side of roasted potatoes.

A Variation on Succotash with Wilted Dandelion Greens

When I woke up at 6am on my first day back from the big Euro trip, the only thing I could think to do was to make this lemon curd tart with olive oil from gourmet magazine. I had never made it before, but had been thinking about the recipe for a few days. A few hours later, my parents and I took a trip to the new farmers' market that opened a few weeks ago in our neighborhood. The selection of vegetables was very limited but we managed to pick up a few things for lunch and dinner. When we got back home from the market, I prepared a little open-faced sandwich with melted manchego cheese, homemade aioli, pickled shallots, a fried egg and arugula from our garden. I'll post about the tart and the sandwich later, but I was the most excited about what I came up with for dinner.

Recipe for about 5 people

First, I sliced up about a pound of potatoes into bite sized pieces about the same size as the fava beans. I sautéed them in a combination of butter and oil until they were just about finished cooking.

Next, I was lucky to have the help of my mother and of my friend Amanda to peel the skins off of the fava beans. This took us a while, but at least we had some cocktails to sip on. I used about 3 cups of the beans.

Next, I cut the kernels off of three corn cobs.

I diced up 2 poblano chilis, one serrano and one jalepeno, along with about half of a large onion.

When the potatoes were almost done, I added in the onion and chilis. Around this time, I started sautéeing some garlic in olive oil in a large pot for the greens.

After about 5 minutes, I added the corn and fava beans to the potatoes and then maybe 5 minutes later I started cooking the greens (they only take about 3 minutes to cook).

Me cooking:

More butter doesn't ever hurt:

We served it with some chalula hot sauce. It was incredibly delicious!!



The End.