Happy New Year!
As I posted on Facebook and Twitter this evening, tonight I cooked a wholesome dinner for the second night in a row, and I feel as if I have woken up from a long winter’s nap!
I didn’t exactly resort to fast food or frozen TV dinners in December, but I definitely haven’t been cooking wholesome meals and trying out new recipes the way I enjoy. I wouldn’t trade my time spent making traditional holiday treats or visiting friends and family for anything, but I am glad to settle back in to a more healthy routine now that the new year is here.
Last night I made winter squash stew, a.k.a. butternut squash soup, and man, was it delicious! It had been a long time since I made that recipe and I already can’t wait to make it again.
Tonight I tried a recipe from Quinoa 365 by Patricia Green and Carolyn Hemming. I’ve mentioned this book before, when I made my chocolate birthday cake, but that was before I actually owned the book.
I got it for Christmas (thanks, Mom!) and so now I not only own it, but I have at least 10 pages flagged already with recipes I intend to try in the next 2-3 weeks. Tonight’s dinner was Thai Cashew Chicken and Broccoli on Quinoa. As far as a quinoa recipe goes, it wasn’t too innovative—basically it was an Asian dish served on quinoa instead of rice—but it was delicious, easy to make, and got me excited about quinoa (and cooking in general) again!
Since I don’t have the publisher’s permission, I won’t share the recipe here, but I encourage you to get this book, whether from a bookstore or from the library, and try it out. My only note was that I’d like to try the recipe with cashew butter instead of peanut butter—it doesn’t use much, only 3 Tbsp, but since the cashews were just sprinkled on top, the chicken had more of a peanut-y flavor than a cashew one, although it was certainly yummy so I can’t complain!
One other note about this recipe: it calls for oyster sauce, which I have never used before. According to Wikipedia, oyster sauce describes a number of different sauces, all made by cooking oysters. Sadly on my first attempt to find it in a regular grocery store, all I found was oyster-flavored sauce, which was really just fish sauce, and was loaded with high-fructose corn syrup, so I decided to pass on that. Luckily I found real oyster sauce (sans the corn syrup!) at Whole Foods, and since the recipe only called for 2 Tbsp, I have plenty left for trying this recipe or some variation again.
I think next time I might swap in shrimp for chicken, and I definitely plan to try it with long slices of zucchini instead of broccoli for a friend who is not a broccoli fan. Luckily my husband, who is also not a broccoli fan, happily ate it up in this dish!
I have a feeling this is the first of many blog posts I will be writing about my experiences with this cookbook. I’m sorry not to be able to share the exact recipes, but check out the authors’ Quinoa 365 website for a few freebies they have posted there, and if you get the book, be sure to let me know which recipes you try and enjoy! I’m all revved up and ready to try a lot of new healthy recipes to get our year off to a great start!
What has you jazzed about the new year? Are you feeling inspired and motivated? Leave me a comment and share!
