Quinoa feels like one big hug

Meal planning snuck on me this week. It was late Saturday when I plotted out what I was going to make for the week (and my grocery list). Here's a link to the summary of my meal planning process. I didn't feel like combing through my cookbooks, so I relied on my pinterest board. I decided on the following:

• Main Meals and Accompanying Sides
• Baked balsamic chicken from this recipe with the cranberry/pistachio quinoa from this recipe.
• Zucchini/Yellow Squash noodles with pasta sauce from this recipe with plain ole ground turkey.

The tomato sauce calls for coconut milk; and honestly, I do not like cooking with canned coconut milk. Not because I do not like the taste, but I get antsy over what to do with the rest of it. I hate throwing food away. So knowing that I would be using coconut milk this week, I decided to pick the following extra snack:

• Chia Chocolate Mousse (w/ an extra scoop of protein powder)

If I have any coconut milk extra, I'll experiment with smoothies.

First Meal Breakdown

Wait, isn't quinoa a grain? Yes, no, um, maybe. I've read a number of articles that say quinoa is the safe grain; that it is really a seed. Blah, blah, blah. Whatever it is; it is tasty. It feels like home; it feels like a nice big hug. Quinoa's warm exuberance is second to the classic french baguette, which is an even rarer treat. Since quinoa is higher in carbs than my usual side, I limit its warm embrace to once a month, sometimes every other month.

But first I marinated and seared the chicken before putting it in the oven:

While the chicken was baking, I cooked the quinoa. It is pretty straight forward:

While the chicken and quinoa were cooking, I minced a shallot, halved fresh cranberries, and portioned out some pistachios and pumpkin seeds. The original recipe called for 1/2 cup of pistachios, but I only had about 1/4. I supplemented the rest with pumpkin seeds.

I didn't use a whole shallot for the quinoa, so I decided to sauté the rest with steamed green beans.

After the quinoa finished setting, I added the fixings. The original recipe called for dried cranberries, but I used frozen instead. My number one mistake was that I used juice of 1 lemon. I should have used 1/4th a lemon because the cranberries already are so tart. To mask the bitterness, I added some coconut sugar, more salt, and a drizzle of olive oil.

The meal was really well rounded. And I'm definitely looking forward to leftovers.

I'm really glad I made the green beans because everything together tasted really good. Next time, I'll look to caramelize the cranberries (if there is such a thing).