Paprika Shrimp, Green Bean, and Quinoa

Well folks, last night was my first night cooking since I started this “challenge”. (Love the word challenge, if you call it a challenge I will do it!) I want to be able to tell you it was a truly miserable experience, but alas that is not the case. Let me first tell you that I had a busy day of grocery shopping, cleaning, and cutting the grass. While cutting the grass I was cursing under my breath about having to cook after all of this hard labor. This is not a work camp, I deserve a break man! So after sweating in my yard, I took a ½ hour break. Then it was time to start cooking. I can honestly say I didn’t feel any fear. When I walked into the kitchen I felt a sort of peace come over me. Apparently in order to cook I need to be super tired.

The first order of business was to get all the prep work done. I started prepping the food at 7:14pm. I had to trim the green beans. I needed to check with my husband and make sure this just meant taking the stems off, and indeed it does. I also had to chop parsley, dill, an onion, and 2 small carrots. I can pretty much chop parsley and dill easily enough, I just smush all the leaves together and chop.

Onion and carrot were not so easy for me. I usually use my chopper for onion, but figured I would chop it by hand this time since it was so small. My husband walked by for the chopping and said I wasn’t doing it right (of course not!). He also said I was well on my way to cutting a finger off. Nice. (Note to readers: I still need to read up on and practice my cutting skills. I just haven’t had time yet.)

Luckily the shrimp that I bought were already deveined so I just needed to peel them, simple enough. Also, I needed to rinse the cannellini beans and quinoa. For those of you who don’t know what quinoa (KEEN-wah) is, it’s a grain that looks a lot like bird seed. Sounds really appealing doesn’t it? Yum! Here’s a picture of it:

I wanted to try quinoa a few months ago for the health appeal. I tried it and the outcome wasn’t good. So I had to try it again. I’m a firm believer in trying things at least 3 times, 3 different ways, before you decide whether you like it or not. Once I finished all of this, 30 minutes had already gone by! Yikes! I told you I was slow!

Now that the torturous part is over, onto the fun! I don’t have much to say about the cooking part. It all went really well. Even my timing was good and it’s usually way off. I was very proud of myself as I watched the shrimp turn pink and when the green beans steamed correctly. I wasn’t too sure about the quinoa, but I looked for the tell-tale quinoa is done sign (look at the grains they should be transparent and the rings separate from it) and it was.

Finished product:

Overall I was very happy with this dinner. My husband seemed to like it too. He did mention that the quinoa didn’t really go with the rest of it (I just really wanted to try quinoa again). I recommend both these recipes to you. The shrimp had good flavor with the vinegar and garlic on it (I cut the recipe in ½ since there are only two of us). For the quinoa recipe I would only use 1 vegetable bouillon cube or even less, it was a bit salty. And less water maybe 1 cup-1 ½ cups. My rule still holds true though. I didn’t like the quinoa much the first time I tried it, now I’ve tried it another way and like it much better. I even brought the left-over quinoa for lunch today!

Totals: 30 minutes prep(with some distractions), 30 minutes for cooking, 3 pots used. I would say that both recipes are pretty easy to make. Enjoy!

Where I found these great recipes:

Paprika Shrimp and Green Bean Saute

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/paprika_shrimp_green_bean_saute.html

Quinoa

http://www.grouprecipes.com/74814/quinoa-side-dish.html