May 17: Greek-inspired Quinoa with Feta and Avocado

So, I (once) thought it would be a good idea to rip recipes that I found delicious out of my magazines. Fast-forward four years and two moves later, and I have a random pile of magazine clippings that I'm not sure what to do with. I ended up buying a binder and trying to sort through everything so I can actually utilize these recipes when I'm looking for something new to cook. Hence this new-found (and much loved) quick dinner recipe.

First, you cook 1/2 cup of quinoa in water (I just followed the directions on the package for the timing and ratio of quinoa to water).

We were originally concerned about the amount of quinoa this recipe called for, but it ended up being plenty.

While that cooked, I mixed a dressing of 2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a little bit of kosher salt. 
 

The base of the quinoa salad is a handful of chopped spinach leaves, 2 chopped and seeded Roma tomatoes and finely diced red onion (maybe about 1/3 of a cup? I usually eyeball it).

I tried to dice the onion as small as possible. I love red onion, but make these pieces too big and you'll have some kickin' onion breath.

Once the quinoa is done, you mix it in with the vegetables. The warm quinoa softens up the spinach leaves. You then mix in the lemon/oil/salt dressing and stir everything together.
 

You prepare a bed of larger spinach leaves on the plate.  

You add the quinoa on top of the spinach leaves, and top with crumbled feta and some avocado.

You don't need to use as much avocado as I did. I definitely used an entire one just for myself, which is plain ridiculous.

Both Paul and I really enjoyed this dish. It was simple and quick to make. We're also trying to eat meatless at least twice a week, so this is something to add to our stock of meat-free recipes (which currently consist of veggie tacos, pasta, and stir fry with tofu.)

It's really only the feta that makes this "Greek-inspired," so I imagine if you changed up the ingredients, you could make it a couple different ways:

• Blue cheese crumbles with the same ingredients -- would be similar to world's best salad
• Manchego cheese shavings and pepitas for more of a Spanish flavor
• Queso fresco or Chihuahua cheese and black beans for a Mexican dish

I'm excited to try this a few different ways!