my dinner: chili-garlic shrimp and quinoa

One look at Pinterest and you'd think the entire world is eating quinoa every night of their life. [BTW... if you're not familiar... it's pronounced keen-wah, which I embarrasingly learned after casually asking someone about kin-oh-uh.]

I decided to finally give it a whirl. I really should have come up with an easy dish to try first, but that's not my style. I had never even cooked raw shrimp before, but it was hella easy. So I found some plain quinoa [found by the rice, not the pasta] and this delicious recipe and went to work on a dinner for one.

Because I was too excited [/extremely flustered because reading and cooking is hard], I didn't get process-photos. Here's a look at the final dish, though!

The quinoa was a little undercooked but also burnt on the bottom of my pan, so I clearly need to read up on the proper ways to cook it, but the flavor was amazing! I didn't even use 1/4 of the butter sauce they recommended, and it was still one of the most flavorful things I've ever cooked.

Here is Pinch of Yum's recipe that feeds four, and a much better picture of a full dish.

YOU NEED: 

-1 tbs olive oil

-1 lb of raw shrimp [I used Nature's Promise frozen shrimp]. Leave only the tails on

-1/2 cup finely chopped onion

-5 teaspoons of minced garlic

-2 cups of uncooked quinoa

-4 cups of vegetable or chicken broth

-6 tbs butter [they recommended salted, but I used unsalted and thought it was almost too salty]

-2 tsp chili powder

-fresh parsley for garnishing

-I also added 2 sliced green onions

YOU DO: 

1. Heat the oil and saute your onions until soft, about 3-5 minutes

2. Add in 2 tsp of garlic and saute for about a minute. 

3. Add in the uncooked quinoa, 1 tbs of chili power, salt and pepper [to taste] and stir for about a minute so the flavor really gets in there. 

4. Now add the broth and bring to a boil. Bring down the heat and cover... cook for 15 minutes stirring regularly. [And keep and eye on it... mine burnt pretty quickly after the broth was dried up.]

5. While the quinoa is cooking, cook the shrimp. Melt 1 tbs of butter in a skillet then add the shrimp. Sprinkle with 1 tbs of chili powder and saute until slightly browned. [When almost done, add 1 tsp of garlic to the pan.]

6. Melt 5 tbsp of butter and 2 tsp of garlic in the microwave. This will be drizzled on top. [Like I said, you could use about 1/2 of this and be good]

7. Put the shrimp on the quinoa, and drizzle the sauce on top and VOILA! 

When I made this, I thought the calorie count was going to be through the roof, but it's only 330 calories per serving! Take out some of that butter sauce and it's actually a pretty healthy meal! 

If you have any tips for cooking quinoa to perfection, I'd pay you in love for them!

love,
elizabethany

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