Lemon Quinoa Chicken Stir Fry

Hey, it's Jess :)

So Tom has been making a pretty impressive selection of vegan treats so I figured it's time for me to cook something vaguely interesting again. My recent meals have quite often been based around throwing a load of vegetables, chicken and sweet potato in a dish and baking. And serving. Like this.

 I'd write a recipe, but I literally did as I said. Veg, sweet potato, chicken and chopped tomatoes with whatever herbs and seasonings you fancy, in the oven until...done. Perfect.

And having given up chocolate for lent (yes, that is ALL chocolate and cocoa based products), I've been desperately looking for nice things to cheer me up when I'm craving my late night chocolate fix. (See future carob recipes!)

Going slightly off tangent, Tom and I have been increasing our training recently, as we're aiming to run the Bristol Half Marathon this year and a marathon (undecided as to which - suggestions anyone?) in 2014. So anyway, alongside trying to watch our weight, I have become a little obsessed with increasing my protein intake and cutting my carbs down. I know that working hard in the gym won't pay off if I'm not eating the right things, so now seemed like a good time to try new things. So I decided this would be a good opportunity to try the gluten-free, high protein grain quinoa.

I had never tried or seen quinoa until about an hour ago, so bear with me. But having done a little research on how to cook it, I figured I'd come up with a high protein recipe that can be eaten for lunch or dinner. You could easily make this recipe vegan by omitting the chicken and adding some other veg, I just really like chicken.

Ingredients (Serves 3-4)
1 cup (uncooked) quinoa
1 lemon
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 red pepper, sliced
1-2 spring onions, chopped
1 courgette, sliced
2-3 chicken breast, cut into thin strips
2 tbsp soy sauce/gf tamari
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon



To cook the quinoa, add 2 cups boiling water to 1 cup quinoa and cook for about 10-12 minutes until the germ has separated. A little white line kind of appears around the outside of the little grains and they soften, basically. To stop it being too bland, I added half a lemon to the boiling water, thus giving the quinoa a citrusy hint.

 When the quinoa is cooked, leave it to the side and chop and stir fry the onions with a little oil, adding the chicken and veg as you go. Add the soy sauce, cumin and cinnamon together with the juice from the unused half of the lemon and add a tablespoon of this to the cooking chicken and veg. Add the quinoa once the chicken and vegetables are cooked, and add the rest of the soy sauce mix to the quinoa. Stir fry for a few more minutes until the quinoa has taken on the flavours. Either serve immediately, or keep covered in the fridge. I did both, and had a portion for tea and will have another portion cold tomorrow for lunch. Using my fitness pal, there are 312 calories in one portion and 25g protein, so definitely fits the bill for a high protein healthy gluten free meal!

I will be using quinoa in a few more future recipes now I have figured it out, but please let me know if you have any suggestions :) enjoy!

Vegan Pesto Boursin

Tom again,

This is part two of the vegan cheese and wine evening. Boursin is one thing I really miss, especially around christmas time. It was a tradition of mine to try and make it through an entire wheel in one sitting with a pack of Tuc biscuits at some point over the chrismas period. Always regretted it, always did it again the next year. This is an attempt to recreate that using tofu as a base

Ingredients:

50g Pine Nuts
50g Cashew Nuts
1 pack (/carton) Clearspring Firm Silken Tofu
4 medium cloves Garlic
1 tbsp Butter
1 1/2 tsp Sea Salt Flakes
1 tsp Black Pepper
25g Chives
A large handful of Basil Leaves (remove the stalks)
Juice of 1/2 a Lemon

Method:

This recipe is very simple -
Toast the pine nuts and cashews, then crush with a pestle and mortar
Blend everything together in a jug
Leave in the fridge for a few hours
Serve on crackers or baguette as you like

I didn't mean to make this so much like pesto originally, recipes I'd seen used varying amounts of cashews and tofu so I decided to add some, and though a few toasted pine nuts would go well, not realising that of course the basic flavours of pesto are basil, garlic and pine nuts. This combined with my rather heavy handed basil tendencies meant that this ended up being quite like a pesto dip, but still tasty nonetheless! As I blended in everything with a hand blender at the party this was referred too by the generic 'green stuff', but people still seemed to enjoy it! I certainly did, and with garlic and basil and toasted pine nuts it's pretty difficult to make anything taste bad (I could happily eat pesto forever!).

Lemon and Coconut Chickpea Macaroons

Tom today,

Ever since going to the christmas markets (if you haven't been yet and are in manchester, GO, albert square, now) and smelling all of the wonderful things that I couldn't eat, I've had a massive craving for coconut macaroons. The smell of them cooking was enough to make my stomach tap it's watch disapprovingly to remind me it was dinner time. So, after a hard day's revision I decided that I would throw something together that vaguely resembled them, put it on the internet, then sit back and bask in the glory of my own genius. Here's what happened.

Ingredients:

1 can Chickpeas (drained and thoroughly washed)

1/2 cup Dessicated Coconut

3 tbsp Coconut Milk (I used creamed coconut in hot water)

1 tsp Baking Powder

6 tbsp Rolled Oats (This came out as roughly 75g when I measured it afterwards)

Pinch of Salt (I always use Maldon - you caught me, I'm a salt snob.)

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

Juice and Zest of 1/2 a Lemon

This is another complete make-it-up-as-I-go-along recipe, but my last one went pretty well so I'm hopeful. I used this recipe to make 16 smallish cookies. These worked out to only 77 calories each, which was definitely my favourite bit!

Method:

Preheat an oven to 200 degrees celsius.

Blend the chickpeas in a mixing bowl.

Add all the dry ingredients (coconut, oats, baking powder, salt and sugar) and mix together thoroughly.

Add the vanilla bean paste, lemon (zest and juice) fold through.

Add the coconut milk, stirring gently until the mixture is the right consistency (if you don't need all the milk don't add it, and if it's a bit thick or dry then add a dash of water and mix in.

Spoon cookie-sized balls onto a lightly greased baking tray.

Cook for 15 minutes on the top shelf.

Then, just as they start to brown around the edges, squash them flat with a spoon (I was hoping they would spread like cookies but apparently I was too optimistic here)

Cook for a further 10 minutes until golden.

I am super happy with how these turned out! Only 77 calories apiece. And the smell filling the kitchen is definitely christmas-market-ey enough to satisfy my stomach. I'm starting to get into this style of cooking, however pretty soon I think I'm going to have to bake something hideous and fat filled to balance this out.

(Jess: Tom gave me one of these the day after making them and they were delicious - please try this recipe!)

As always, email any comments or photos you have to me and Jess at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com - we love to hear from you!

Enjoy

A close-up slightly-out-of-focus picture of food on a food blog!? Genius.

Nuritional Info (if made into 16)

                      Calories   Carbs     Fat     Protein     Sodium     Sugar

          Total:     1236        182       45         29             67          113

Per Serving:        77           11        3          2               4            7