Quinoa and Black Bean Risotto

Day 3 of the cleanse (we actually did the cleanse this last week for 6 days. I'm posting the recipes one by one). Here's item No. 3 for my cleansing diet menu - quinoa and black bean risotto. We eat quinoa quite often. I usually cook red quinoa and make salad or some sort of patty cakes. But I wanted to try something new and different for a change. James was a little cranky. The cleansing has been mentally tough for him. He was craving for his fish, meat, sweets, etc... and knowing he couldn't have those for the next 3 days was making him grumpy. 

I was ready for this. I knew he wouldn't last long with only soups and salads. I was browsing through some recipes online and saw quite a few risottos with grains. So this is my take on something in that area. It turned out that this is one of the tastiest things I've ever made according to my husband. Not bad at all! That was nice to hear from Mr. Grump.

I made two slightly different versions just to see how they turned out since I've never made a risotto with quinoa before and wasn't following any particular recipe. The dish in the first two images, I made more for my husband who wanted a  more "filling" dish. So I used portabella mushrooms and a generous amount of half-mashed black beans. In the third photo, I used oyster mushrooms instead and used a smaller number of un-mashed black beans and more vegetables. They were both good. The latter is much lighter even though I used all the same ingredients except the mushrooms. 

This dish could be a salad if it was cold and soup if it had more broth in it. But making it into risotto makes it a bit more like a hardy comfort food.

At this point on my third day into cleansing, I really don't feel a big change in my diet. If anything, it's making me more conscious about healthy and natural eating and that's just greeeeat! 

So far, so good : -) 3 more days to go... and 3 more recipes to be posted...

Recipe: 4 servings

2 cups of quinoa

2 big portabella mushrooms cut into cubes

1 pack of oyster mushrooms torn in half.

1 can of black beans

2-3 cups of vegetable broth

1 cup of diced zucchinis

1 cup of diced onions

3 cloves of chopped garlic

1 handful of cilantro

2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

2 tsp of cumin

1 tsp of smoked paprika

salt and pepper

pine nuts or sunflower seeds

Satay chopped garlic and onions with olive oil in a heated pan until onions are cooked. 

Add mushroom and zucchinis and cook some more. Add salt, pepper, cumin and paprika. 

Add 2 cups of quinoa and satay first, then add about a half cup of vegetables at a time and repeat 4-6 times until quinoa is cooked al dente (I like it runny, but use less stock if you don't).

Add black beans (you can half-mash beans or not depending on your preference).

Stir some more.

Add roughly chopped cilantro and stir some more. Sprinkle some pine or sunflower nuts over the dish.

Bon Appetit!