Day 5

Day 5

I'm running late from work.  Having just missed a bus, I had a long wait for the next one and was just too tired to walk.  A quick snack I thought.  And then "oh no, what can I eat?"  I went to Starbucks and grabbed a bag of Sweet Potato Chips. The internal monologue : They can't have that much oil can they? It's the Food Tastes Good company, they make good stuff. My belly roars just feed us the freakin chips already before we self implode.

I devour the chips in seconds- they are sooo good and sweet and salty and oily and hey they are really sweet and oily! Post devouringI look at the bag- added cane sugar and quite a bit of oil. There's a funny taste in my mouth  a strange combo of oil and Guilt ...
Happily when I get home Himself confesses that he had teriyaki tofu takeout for lunch that definitely had oil in it and I mention the chip consumption.

And then I made one of our favorite dishes Black Beans and Quinoa...

This dish takes 20 minutes.

Ingredients:
1 cup  quinoa
1 can black beans
Cumin
1 can Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes with green chilies or chipotle
1 avocado
1/2 a yellow onion
2-4 cloves garlic to taste
 1 cup baby spinach or chopped kale

 Into a saucepan  pour 2 cups water and  1 cup Quinoa and bring to boil . Reduce heat to simmer and cover.  The water will be absorbed and the quinoa cooked in about 20 minutes. Check  once or twice to make sure it's just simmering. Remove from heat when done.

While the quinoa cooks, saute some chopped garlic and onions in a tiny bit/2-3 tablespoons- of water or veggie broth about 5 minutes then add in the tomato mix and the black beans and  cumin to taste - I tend to use close to a tablespoon of cumin.
 Simmer this while quinoa is cooking.  When the quinoa is done, stir the cup of greens into the black bean mixture.  Serve the black bean mix on top of the quinoa and mix then garnish with avocado.  if your goal is weight loss use less avocado.  Himself gets a small portion of avocado whereas I, who need to maintain my weight, get half the avocado and the remainder goes to my leftovers  for lunch on Day 6.

Variations: spring onion and cilantro.  Add these as garnish or in place of spinach and onion.  Here's a picture of the dish with the spring onion and cilantro.   For extra heat add in different chilies or a dash of hot sauce.  Tabasco Chipotle is oil free.