veggie platter featuring tomato and mushroom quinoa

17 Apr

this entire meal is actually vegan – well, the butter is not. 🙂 but if you wanted to use this delicious stuff, it could be.

here is what i cooked up tonight – and by all means, cook up your own favourite veggies. the point of this dish is really to just keep it vegan. make a huge plate of veggies once a week if not more, when you can. your body will so thank you!

ingredients {look at all that pretty colour!} :

– 2 cups baby carrots

– 2 cups brussel sprouts

– 3 small squash {i’m featuring patty pan squash}

– 1 cup quinoa

– 2-3 small mushrooms

– 2-3 small tomatoes

– butter, S&P

to begin, preheat oven to 400 degrees. rinse your brussels, and slice them in half. a little trick of mine, i melt some butter on the stovetop while i’m chopping then toss my veggie into a bowl with the melted butter so it coats evenly. add in a little S&P {garlic too, if you wish} and toss together like so :

once oven is ready, place brussels on a baking sheet lined with tinfoil, and pop them in. they’ll cook for about 20-30 minutes.

meanwhile, get your carrots into a steamer if you have one or something like this :

if you have nothing to steam in, fear not – you can just add about an inch of water to the bottom of your pot and boil your carrots. just check on them often so they don’t stick to the bottom…

as those are going, cook your quinoa. basically it’s 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water. you want to look for the germ to start to separate from the grain, as your cooking… about 10-15 minutes into boiling it. the water will start to absorb. stir as you cook.

in a small skillet, heat a tablespoon of your butter and saute your mushrooms until tender, then add in tomatoes. remove from heat. once quinoa is *almost* finished, toss in your mushrooms and tomatoes and cover. stir once or twice to fluff.

lastly, we will prepare our squash. you could steam it or bake it, but since i have a million things going on, i just decided to saute mine.

heat a little butter in a skillet and toss it in, simple stuff.

check on your brussels, should take about 20 minutes to roast them.

once carrots are tender, brussels are crisp, and squash is browning, remove all from heat, fluff your quinoa one more time and let’s get ready to grub down.