Roasted Veg with Quinoa
Serves: 4
Time: 45 minutes
Dinner doesn’t always need to be a creative masterpiece to keep my house happy, and sometimes it’s more important to get something healthy and edible on the table before the “hangryness” sets in. And while roasties do take some time to cook I love how simple and easy they are to prepare, so this could almost be considered a leave and forget type meal (don’t actually forget about it though).
Not feeling like vegetarian?
Cut everything a little smaller, then mix all the ingredients together like an actual salad, and serve it beside a great big juicy piece of steak if that's your jam.
Leftovers
Perfect for leftovers but we tend to always eat the entire block of cheese with dinner. So maybe crumble some through your lunch portion beforehand.
What you'll need
1 1/2 cups of quinoa
1 large sweet potato
3 small Lebanese eggplants
2 red peppers
1 bunch of baby carrots
a few sprigs of fresh thyme
2 large zucchini
1/4 cup of currants
125g goats cheese or Pesian feta
All the odds and ends of your leftover herbs
From the pantry
olive oil
salt and pepper
Prep and Cook
Preheat Oven to 180c
Cook Quinoa
Rinse quinoa under cold water then place in a medium sized pot with 3 cups of water, a pinch of salt and bring up to the boil.
While your quinoa cooks, start your veg.
Continue to cook with the lid off until there is almost no water left, then cover with a lid and remove from the heat. The best way for me to describe this is it looks like a hot bubbling mud pool. So there is still enough water in the quinoa to create lots of little bubble holes.
Roast Veg
Peel the sweet potato and cut into large semi-circles, toss with oil and salt and pepper and sprinkle with some fresh chopped thyme (if you have it).
Line a tray with baking paper and evenly spread your sweet potatoes across half the tray.
Wash your baby carrots (I like to use a clean tea towel to rub them dry but also to scrub off any dirt that's stuck on them), cut the stalks off and toss with oil and salt and pepper.
Spread them out across the other half of your tray and pop in the oven for 20 minutes.
Slice eggplants in half and again toss in oil with salt and pepper. Lay the eggplant out on a separate tray and cook in the oven for 15 minutes.
When it's all about presentation.
Sometimes it might work to finish your zuchinni in the oven, for example if you have cut them slightly too fat, they will have perfect looking lines before they have cooked right through and the grill pan holds so much heat that they would likely burn first.
Grill Veg (if you don’t have a grill pan then roasting will be just as good).
Slice the zucchini into long thin lengths and brush with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Make sure your grill pan is really hot before you place the zucchini strips down; otherwise they will sweat and won't give you nice dark lines.
They will take almost a minute on each side to get nice charred lines.
Cut peppers in half and remove the seeds. Trim off any white flesh and cut each half into 3 segments, toss with oil and salt and pepper and once you have removed the zucchini, place your peppers on the grill and cook until nicely charred.
As an afterthought, grilled broccoli would go great if you have any.
Plate it Pretty
Roughly chop your herbs and mix through the quinoa along with the currants.
In a large serving bowl start with a good pile-up of the quinoa then arrange your cooked veg around the outside in bunches.
Finish with a big crumbled up mound of goats cheese.
We eat this one straight out of the bowl.
Lunch tomorrow
You might find it easier to separate out your lunch needs beforehand and perhaps mix everything together.