Roast Vegetables with Quinoa, Feta & Chickpeas

Following watching My Kitchen: Anjum Anand, I just had to try quinoa for myself. Anjum is a healthy eating Indian cook, very conscious of making low fat vegetarian food at home. In one particular episode she made quinoa and roasted vegatables. Having never made it before I was dying to try it. I’m a sucker for anything that’s low fat and promotes healthy eating.

This is the nutriental value of quinoa I sourced from Wikipedia

Quinoa was of great nutritional importance in pre-Columbian Andean civilizations, secondary only to the potato, and was followed in importance by maize. In contemporary times, this crop has become highly appreciated for its nutritional value, as its proteincontent is very high (12%–18%). Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), and like oats, quinoa contains a balanced set ofessential amino acids for humans, making it a complete protein source, unusual among plant foods.^[13] It is a good source ofdietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten-free and considered easy to digest.

(Wikipedia)

So today I’ve decided to cook the quinoa and roasted vegetables with my own flair to the dish. I actually made enough for my dinner and my lunch the following day, but alas it tasted so good, I dug into my lunch half also. (Please feel free to use whatever vegetables you have in the house, I did)

Serves 2

Ingredients

·         100g of quinoa

·         1 small sweet potato, peeled & cubed

·         1 small fennel bulb, sliced thinly

·         4 asparagus spears, woody ends removed

·         1 red pepper, sliced roughly

·         1 courgette, sliced roughly

·         1 tbsp of olive oil

·         4 sprigs thyme

·         ½ can of chickpeas

·         30g of low fat feta, cubed

·         Chopped flat leaf parsley

Method

1.       Preheat the oven to 180 degrees

2.       Put all the vegetables in a roasting tin with oil & thyme and mix thoroughly

3.       Roast for 20 minutes, turning them half way.

4.       Meanwhile, put the quinoa in saucepan of water with lemon juice and salt and simmer for 12-15 minutes.

5.       Drain out excess liquid

6.       Take the vegetables out of the oven, and mix in the quinoa, chickpeas,and feta.

7.       Put the roasting tin back in the oven for 5 minutes.

8.       Then take out and scatter with the parsley and dig in.