Quinoa Obsession!

I feel like I've abandoned my blog this week! Eeek! I've still been busy cooking, baking, crafting, and most importantly mommy-ing, but I haven't had the time or focus to sit down and write =/ My house was looking good and then yesterday it appeared that a bomb went off, the worst part is my Swiffer Wet Jet is dead. My parents just picked up my kids for the night and I hoped to get everything sorted out while they're gone, but I decided to open a bottle of Angry Orchard instead...ooops!

On to more important things! Life is full of lessons and I'm trying to make the choice to learn from them, this goes for many things in my life. Most relevant to this blog are lessons focused on food! I keep reading about food and what you put into your body and most importantly what I fill my kids bellies with. We are not going completely junk free, in fact Mr.M had a doughnut from Dunkin Donuts today, he was quite the trooper this week and ate all the healthy food put in front of him (he even said he loved the cookies). I started actually looking at labels, what the heck are half the things in non-stick spray or jelly!?! Parchment paper is the way to go! There are so many super helpful blogs out there to help you educate yourself and change and that's just what I'm trying to do!

This week we explored quinoa! The only thing we usually have quinoa in is tabbouleh, well that changed this week. Did you know it's a perfect protein?! I didn't!

 First I tried it for breakfast...

You'll need-

2 cups quinoa

water

1 cinnamon stick

1/4c Pecans

strawberries

blueberries

lime

1/2C honey

-Dice the pecans and add them to a pan with the quinoa, let it get a good color, it takes maybe 3-5 minutes

-Then leaving the pecans in and adding a cinnamon stick cook according to package (add to boiling water and let it cook about 15min)

-Slice up strawberries 

-When the quinoa is cool move it to a bowl and add the berries

-Mix the juice of the lime and honey and pour over quinoa

Super easy and super healthy!

For lunch one day I had quinoa with olive oil, lemon, and sea salt!

And last, but definately not least I made quinoa coconut chocolate chip cookies. Possibly the best cookies I've ever had! They are so fluffy and moist, I was pretty surprised

(after spending way too attempting to crop this photo I have decided it cannot be done)

I found the wonderful recipe for this on loves food loves to eat.

Some of the ingredients were things I just did not have so here's my slightly altered recipe...

You'll need-

1 1/2c Flour

1tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2tsp baking powder

1/2c room temp unsalted butter

1/4c dark brown sugar

3tbs sugar

1/4c honey

2 eggs

1/2tsp vanilla

1/2tsp almond extract

1c cooked, cooled quinoa

1c semi sweet chocolate chips

1/2c shredded coconut

-Heat oven to 375
-Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl (EXCEPT chocolate and coconut)
-Combine all wet ingredients in mixer bowl
-Slowly add dry mixture to mixer bowl
-After completely blended fold in chocolate chips and coconut
-Place small balls of dough on a parchment covered tray and bake 10-12min



Have a great weekend! I'll be back with a doughnut recipe soon!