Mexican-Style Quinoa

This weekend I fancied using something a little different to the usual rice or pasta dishes so here is: Mexican-Style Quinoa!

Quinoa has a bit of a rep for being the favourite food of annoying health bloggers, but honestly it's as easy to cook as rice. It's a bit more expensive but it's nice as a treat and to have some variety.

The difference with cooking it is telling when it's done; instead of it being soft like rice or pasta you have to look to see if it's 'popped' and changed shape, but don't worry - it's pretty obvious when it has!

This is pretty versatile - you can have it on its own as a meal or as a side - it goes great with tortilla chips! You could even use it in stuffed peppers if you wanted.

I ended up serving mine with Waitrose's vegan spanish sausage swirls and a few manomasa chipotle and lime tortilla chips.

This took around half an hour to make, and made 3 servings.

Ingredients

• 6oz of quinoa (or 4.5oz if you're making this as a side)
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• 1 red onion
• 3 bell peppers (I used one red, one orange, one green)
• 150g mushrooms
• 100g of your favourite greens (I used pak choi!)
• 150g mixed beans
• 2 TSP smoked paprika
• 2 TSP chilli powder
• 1 TSP cumin
• 2 TBSP tomato puree

Method

1. In a pan, add the quinoa and the vegetable stock dissolved in 500ml of water. Bring to the boil and cook until the quinoa has 'popped' and has outlines on the grains. You may need to add more water while it's cooking, and this should take 10-15 minutes. 
2. In a seperate pan, fry the onion, peppers and mushrooms until they've browned slightly. 
3. Add the greens and beans and fry for a further few minutes.
4. Add the spices to the veg, and stir to combine.
5. Once the quinoa is cooked, cook off the excess liquid, add the lid to the saucepan and take off the heat. Leave the quinoa in the pan for about 5 minutes to allow it to steam and become fluffy. 
6. Add the quinoa to the veg along with the tomato puree. Stir until the veg is combined.
7. Serve either as its own dish or as a side with other mexican food!