Quinoa Lunch

So.. school started this week. As I sort my new schedule out, I am also trying to think of some new ideas for lunches. I want something hearty but also healthy. I have gotten really into quinoa--it is an awesome source of protein and very filling! I did make a lunch with it last school year and I tried to use it in a different way -- so I was inspired by this recipe for a kind of quinoa quiche/frittata. I was too lazy to actually go to the grocery store to get the ingredients from that recipe so I just used whatever vegetables I had lying around the fridge. It was tricky for me to figure out how much quinoa to actually cook. The original recipe said 1 cup precooked quinoa, but I took 1 cup of dry quinoa & cooked that -- which resulted in like 4 cups of quinoa. I forgot how much bigger it gets after it's cooked!

Ingredients: 4 eggs, 2 cups cooked quinoa, shredded carrot, diced onions, diced tomato, 2 hot peppers, 1 ear of corn, cooked salmon, 2 cloves of garlic minced -- I was able to make 12 muffin sized portions with these ingredients.

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Beat eggs and stir into cooked quinoa.
3. Mix everything else in there, add some salt & pepper to your taste.
4. Generously butter muffin tin and fill with mixture.
5. Bake 20 minutes.

I think 2 of these muffin sized quinoa cakes or whatever you wanna call them make a perfect serving for a meal. I like to eat mine with ketchup :) I also have a side of pickled cucumbers here.

Thoughts: These turned out kind of crumbly and a lot of the bottoms stuck to the pan, which was annoying. I think maybe I put way too much corn in there or not enough egg to hold it all together. Other than that I really enjoyed the flavor & texture, and think it's a really awesome way to change up how you eat quinoa!

Here it is all packed for the week! I brought it for breakfast and lunch since one meal for the amount of time I'm at school usually leaves my tummy grumbling by the end of the day.

-J