Quinoa and Parmesan Stuffed Roasted Tomatoes

Last week we had one of those Indian Summer dinners that made my mouth water and my senses tingle with joy. The main course, Baked Balsamic Agave Chicken, was succulent and flavorful. We munched Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Fingerling Potatoes on the side. And we capped off the dinner with these delicious Quinoa and Parmesan Stuffed Roasted Tomatoes. These are easy to make, ridiculously healthy, and absolutely perfect to serve on the side of a some sort of grilled masterpiece of an entree. Nosh. Nosh. Nosh.

There is something magical about simple ingredients combined in the right proportions. These tomatoes are bursting with flavor, and the flavor of these little beauties is enhanced by roasting them. Simple, real, whole food, minus all of the junk and gunk that come in those supermarket pre-packaged foods. Oh yeah. Music to my ears. Or tongue. Whatever.

Quinoa, Lentil, Squash and Tomato Stuffed Peppers

There are some foods that should be your best friend. Quinoa is my best friend, for sure. We're super tight. We chill at least once a week. My other best friends are a little less healthy...cream cheese, well, any cheese to be exact, chocolate, bread...yeah. So I decided to make a new friend on the playground a few months ago. Her name is Lentil. Confession-I knew Lentil well during my childhood. My mom cooked with lentils all the time, especially a really yummy lentil soup that I have yet to make on my own. Lentils are packed with nutrients and a great, inexpensive addition to your cooking arsenal. I made a great one-pot meal with chicken and lentils a few months ago, and I was inspired to attempt something different today. So I am teaming up Quinoa and Lentil and we're going to have a grand old time.

The product of this blessed union of amazing food are these Quinoa, Lentil, Squash and Tomato Stuffed Peppers. This healthy, whole-foods, natural meal is a winner in terms of nutrition and taste. It is also vegetarian (it could easily be vegan if you omit the cheese) and super simple in terms of preparation. The lentil and quinoa mixture also contains some fresh zucchini and summer squash and chopped tomato, all encased in green bell pepper and topped with crunchy Panko and fresh mozzarella. I would prefer to make these with red bell peppers, but I had green on hand, so that's what we are using today!

These are delicious, extremely healthy and packed with fiber, protein and vitamins and minerals. Hubby ate his with great gusto and remarked about how good they were! We ate ours by just cutting them in half and enjoying the crunchy pepper shell and deliciously seasoned filling. We paired ours with fresh fruit and enjoyed an awesome, easy to prepare meal. Try these out. You might be surprised how much you like them. And your body will thank you so much for not stuffing it with Velveeta cheese instead ;) They are also really budget-friendly and a great way to create a meal that doesn't depend on meat.

Quinoa Stuffed Italian Zucchini Boats

The past four days of my life have been crayyyyyzaaaayyyyy. Yes. I must use that specific amount of hyperbole. We had a cute four-year-old niece sleep over, a filthy dog that rolled in all sorts of outdoor nastiness, a fun dinner party with friends, and family dinner and all sorts of little in-between things that came up. Most inconvenient of all was the terrible weather that rendered it impossible to take decent pictures inside, and the loss of water in our house on Saturday morning. Suffice it to say that I did not document any of my cooking exploits Friday-Sunday. I will put those recipes up in the near future when I take another swing at them.

Today, though, I am making a yummy, simple supper-these quick and easy Quinoa Stuffed Italian Zucchini Boats, and a post to come in the near future, a fast and good for your belly and your soul summery Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad with Apples on Whole Wheat. Look for that one soon!

We got a ton of pretty little Italian squashes in our Bountiful Basket produce haul this week. I had to come up with a few dishes that used them this week, and this is the first. I have never really cared for zucchini unless it was baked and covered in cheese, marinated and grilled, or grated up into bread or heavenly Chocolate Zucchini Cake. These little boats are a great new addition to my limited list of methods of zucchini consumption. They are roasted to bring out their natural flavor, stuffed with deliciously seasoned quinoa and baked to meld all of the flavors together. You will love these. I think kids will enjoy them a lot, and they are really, really easy to whip up. If you have 10 minutes of prep time, you can make these babies and then you can eat them and feel satisfied that you made an amazing, whole-food meal that is nutritious and absolutely mouth-watering. This could easily be made vegan if you omit the cheese.

Coconut Quinoa Burgers With Grilled Pineapple

Tonight's dinner was pulled off the bench early. I needed a meal to pinch hit for me, and I needed it fast. We were supposed to eat this on Friday, and then I realized my four-year-old niece is spending the night on Friday. She loves fruit and veggies, but I didn't think it would be wise to try to con a munchkin into eating Coconut Quinoa Burgers. Not if I want to remain on her good side, anyway. My husband, on the other hand, can be persuaded into eating all sorts of things with a little wink and a smile. I also discovered I needed more time than anticipated for a few baking projects for the girls at my church tonight, and then a storm rolled through and killed the natural light in my kitchen, just as I was starting dinner. So what you have here are the pictures taken with furious and frantic speed as I threw this meal together. Excuse the less-than-lackluster photography today. Eh. Epic fails are part of daily life. Eat some chocolate and move on.

On a high note, these meatless burgers had me over the moon. I scarfed mine in less than 5 minutes, and hubby enjoyed his a lot too. They were a perfect weeknight meal. Even if you are a meat-eating family, I think you can easily tempt your children with promises of sweet, grilled pineapple. I definitely took this recipe from Brooke at Cheeky Kitchen, who posted a completely veganized/plantie version of this a few weeks ago. I am not a vegan. Oh lawdy, do I love bacon way too much to ever even consider it. Bacon is meat candy. Swoon. Despite my love of saturated fat laden pork products, I am happy to make a lot of my meals meatless and plant-based for a variety of reasons. They are cheaper. They are healthier. They help me to use my weekly bounty of produce from my local food co-op, and they encourage me to experiment and try new things. Let's be honest. If I had a choice, the rest of my life would probably be spent consuming bread and cheese. I could literally live in the cheese case at Whole Foods and be happy forever. Drat. I am experiencing some major A.D.D. today. On to the recipe.

These babies are delicious. They are healthy. They have fabulous flavor and texture. They whip up fast. They make you want to dance and sing and puddle-jump outside of your house in a warm spring rain. Healthy quinoa is mixed with fiber-packed chickpeas and sweet, decadent coconut milk, spices, and panko bread crumbs, and pan-fried in olive oil and coconut oil before being put to bed on some fresh lettuce, ornamented with grilled pineapple, dressed up in a little mayonnaise spread and enveloped in hearty whole wheat. Who doesn't want to eat something described like that? So I took Brooke's vegan meal and turned it into a vegetarian meal that fit what I had available in the house. Hers was flavored with curry, I opted for cumin. I hate curry. Hate it. I lived in a house in college, and some of the people in the house cooked with curry every day. For every meal. Our house smelled like curry all the time. All of my clothes smelled like it. I just can't do curry anymore. So after a few adjustments here and there, and we ate a meal fit for a sometimes health-conscious and amazingly lucky king. Make this. Now. You will love it.

Baked Apple Cinnamon Quinoa

I have an obsession with quinoa (pronounced KEEN-WAH). I learned about it from a friend with some special dietary needs about four years ago, and have been hooked ever since. If you don't eat/use quinoa, I really recommend trying it. Quinoa is a super grain. It cooks quickly, similar to rice, and is gluten-free and PACKED with protein, rich in amino acid, and has great flavor and texture-check out the page at WHFoods for more information. I love to use quinoa in place of rice and pasta, and as a nutritious add-in for a variety of recipes. One of the advantages to using quinoa in your cooking, in addition to the obvious health and nutritive benefits, is that quinoa will take on the flavor of whatever you cook it with. Because of this, quinoa makes a great substitute for oatmeal and is an amazing breakfast food.

I can't sing the praises of quinoa highly enough. It is an amazing food-I call it the super grain. I really encourage you to try it and to make it a staple in your diet. I do have a few pieces of advice for using quinoa.