New Quinoa Side Dish & Zipper's Divine FroYo (but not at the same time!)

With dinner tonight, we needed a side to accompany baked Quorn chik'n cutlets and haricot verts. Seeing our bin of dry quinoa, Zips scoured the internets for a recipe for me to try out and found one that we improvised off of. The original called for diced bell peppers, which we swapped out for diced onions, and called for walnuts which we omitted. I also added parsley. It's fantastic, has subtle flavors, and makes a tasty, healthy side to your lunch or dinner. I bet it'll be good cold too!

Cranberry Coriander Quinoa (side dish)

Add 1 c. quinoa to 2 c. of boiling water and simmer for about 10 min. until the liquid is absorbed. While that's simmering, saute:

3 ribs celery diced finely

1/2 c. yellow onion diced finely

in 1-2 Tb. olive oil

and add

1 tsp. ground coriander

1 tsp. ground cumin

salt & black pepper

Saute until onions and celery are tender then add to the cooked quinoa. Toss in

1/4 c. dried cranberries

1/4 c. chopped parsley

and serve warm.

Afterward, we had planned on just macerated berries (that's fancy talk for slicing berries and tossing some sugar over the top and letting them sit until they get all juicy) for dessert, but Zips really outdid herself in deciding with all the yogurt we have in the house, it's a shame we've never tried to make frozen yogurt. So she did, ignoring all the imperatives she found online that you have to have full fat yogurt. We didn't, and it turned out just fine with the non fat Greek yogurt we have on hand.

Divine Blueberry Lavender Frozen Yogurt

2 c. plain fat free Greek-style yogurt

12 oz. (2 packs) fat free blueberry yogurt (we have Chobani)

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 Tb. vanilla extract

1 Tb lavender buds

Mix all the ingredients together until you're sure the sugar has dissolved. Then dump it all into your ice cream maker. The result is floral, tart, sweet, and heavenly (not to mention fairly guilt-free!)

I'm sure this is only the beginning of much experimentation in the FroYo genre of desserts I can't wait to see what she hankers for next.

Improving on Perfection: Crumble Topping

After the success of the banana raisin muffins, Zips has been on a quest to discover more and even better breakfast recipes. So she found a vegan blueberry muffin that looked healthy-- and they taste healthy. For me they had all qualities that I avoid in baked treats-- they were a bit dense, grainy, not terribly sweet. But these same qualities are why Zips ended up liking them a lot. She agrees they taste healthy, but in a good way. She likes how they smell like whole wheat. I'll spare you the recipe so you go find a better one. But these'll do in a pinch.

So rather than strike off in new territory this morning, I decided to just swap the raisins in last week's banana muffins for blueberries. And to be extra delicious, I decided to look for a crumble topping recipe.

And am I ever glad I did! It's super easy to remember the quantities of the ingredients-- just grab your 1/4 c. measuring cup.

Crumb Topping for muffins (and other things, I'm sure!)

1/4 c. all purpose flour

1/4 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. oats

1/4 c. butter (best if kept cold and cut into small pieces)

1 tsp. cinnamon

mix everything together with a fork until clumpy but well incorporated. Then fork pieces over each muffin-- whatever sort of muffins you decide to make.

It made the muffins smell and taste like PIE! I look forward to making more kinds-- I'm thinking of looking up something with apples and raisins. Oh, and despite Zips' love of blueberries, she likes the banana muffins with raisins better. But she loved the crumble!