Winter is the time of the year we tend to stay inside more compared to warmer periods. Staying inside often also means moving less and at the same time, winter dishes tend to be heavier.
Good food is my passion, no question about it, but staying fit and healthy is something I am passionate about as well. This means that I always try to figure out smarter recipes that taste amazing but are good for me.
It´s all about balance and the recipe I am going to share with you today is a perfect example of healthy food that definitely does not lack flavor!
These little red parcels, known as quinoa, are perfect as a side dish or even a vegetarian main. They look awesome on the dinner table and are rather healthy and balanced due to the protein in the quinoa.
Red Onions with Quinoa Filling
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
6 red onions (about 100g each)
2 tbsp olive oil
1.5 oz quinoa
Salt
3.5 oz cherry tomatoes
Cinnamon
Cayenne pepper
Ground cumin
1 tbsp butter
1 oz raisins
1 oz shaved almonds
Fresh coriander and mint to serve
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
Slice the root tip from the onions at about 3 mm so they would stand up and from the other end cut off around 1 cm. Brush with olive oil.
Place the onions to the mold, add ca 100ml of water, cover with foil and bake for 30 min.
After cooking let them cool slightly, then remove the inner layers of onion carefully with the help of the fork. You want to keep two or three outside layers.
Chop the scraped out onion roughly and place half of it back to the mold together with quartered tomatoes.
Cook the quinoa in salted water for 10 min, then drain.
Melt the butter on the pan and fry the rest of the chopped onions and raisins for about 1 minute. Then add in quinoa and almonds, spice according to your own taste (or slightly stronger) with cayenne, cinnamon and ground cumin and fry for 3-5 minutes.
Fill the onion shells with quinoa mixture, place them back to the baking dish and lightly brush with oil.
Bake for 15 minutes. 5 minutes before taking them out of the oven place the end you cut of earlier on top of onions as a little hat.
Serve with fresh herbs on top as a side dish or vegetarian main.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves healthy food and cooking and for her, these two are often the same thing. Cooking meals from scratch, you know exactly what goes in it and even without holding back with sugar or fat we end up using a lot less compared to ready-made frozen stuff from the supermarket. She does love to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!"
Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: http://www.kahvliga.ee/.
Practice Yoga for Detox, Cleansing, & Vitality now to complement this healthy recipe!