Date Night Dinners - One Pan Wonder Man: Solo Mission
We love our one pot meals! It is such an easy way to cook, and it makes the hassle of cooking and cleaning after a long day of working and running around that much less. This week has been one of those weeks, where everything has had an extra step and takes just a little bit longer then expected. Add up those little bits (or in some cases lot-ta bits) for each task and you're not getting home until 9 at night. What a day; what week. Lucky for us, we found a one skillet quinoa meal that looked perfect for us this week and that we were excited to try. Lucky for me, my awesome boyfriend decided to start dinner, and ended up completely making date night dinner while I finished the running around. The apartment smelled great when I walked in; my stomach gurgled in anticipation. And, from what I saw making the dish went off without a hitch - except when Brenden decided to put his finger in his eye after cutting up the jalapeño...we've all been there. But since I did not have much to do with the prep, Brenden offered to guest write this week's date night dinner.
As prefaced, this week has been hectic. Starting with getting Tracy acquainted with her first smartphone ever (crazy, right?), and ending it with jalapeño in the eye. The one thing we didn't want to make difficult was dinner. However, easy and interesting enough for a date night dinner don’t usually go hand in hand.
This week we opted for what I call a Mexican Quinoa Chili. The level of difficulty seemed low, so I thought I would make it solo and make things easier on Tracy. On a scale of one to ten it was so easy Brenden could do it. All I had to do was spend 5-10 minutes on prep work.
Mincing the 2 cloves of garlic and the jalapeño was really the only thing that took more than 2 seconds. I then chopped up 2 tablespoons of fresh cilantro. It was mostly smooth sailing from here, draining and rinsing the beans, then throwing everything into the pan. I threw in a little extra cumin because it’s a house favorite.
Notice earlier that I said mostly smooth sailing. After everything was simmering away I washed my hands and itched my eye. Apparently the oils were still hanging around because I immediatly knew it was a bad life choice.
But it all ended well after Tracy got home and threw water all over me attempting to rinse out my eye. After a taste test I thought that it was too spicy for her. Perhaps we could have used less jalapeño or less chili seasoning, though I thought it was pretty perfect.
Mexican Quinoa Chili
Recipe adapted from damndelicious.net, One Pan Mexican Quinoa
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 jalapeño, minced
- 1 cup quinoa, uncooked (dried)
- 1 cup vegetable broth
- 1-15 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1-14.5 oz can fire-roased diced tomatoes
- 1 cup corn kernels
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1 avocado, peeled and diced
- Juice of 1 lime
- 2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat.
- Add garlic and jalepeno, cooking for about one minute or until fragrant.
- Stir in quinoa, vegetable broth, beans, tomatoes, corn, chili powder, cumin, and salt and pepper (to taste).
- Bring the mixture to a boil.
- Once boiling, cover and reduce heat, simmering the mixture for about 20 minutes or until the quinoa is cooked through.
- Stir in the avocado, lime juice, and cilantro.
- Serve immediately; enjoy and try not to burn your tongue.Serve immediately.
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