Roasted veggies, before

Theme eating continued this past week with orange-colored foods.

We started out with a super-sized pack of butternut squash from Costco and we made our famous sausage, gnocchi, kale, squash dish and really enjoyed it. This is one of our favorite meals and it’s so great for those cold days when all you want to do is curl up on the couch with your DVR and cats. (I’m glad to know its not just me…)

Not so pretty on the eyes: Squash and tofu sausage

I used a lot of the squash for the gnocchi dish, but I still had plenty left to combine with Brussels sprouts and mushrooms and some of the Trader Joe’s veggie sausage from last week. This is one of the first few times that I’ve tried to roast veggies and have been successful. I’m a good cook, but there are some things even I still need practice with.

Chicken, quinoa, avocado and oranges

One of the things I am really good at? Cooking quinoa. And we found a recipe (thank you, Sunset and Pinterest) for a quinoa salad with chicken, avocado and oranges. This thing looked good AND it tasted fantastic. This recipe is so good that we’re going to put it into our regular rotation and it’s your lucky day because I’m sharing our version of the recipe below.

Shrimp pasta

Finally, we ended our week with a double dose of orange: shrimp pasta, another Pinterest find that turned out pretty good. I wasn’t a fan of how much sauce this dish had but it tasted good. Brandon had the leftovers (while I was jet-setting off to New Orleans) and said they weren’t as good the second time around. We’ll probably not make this again, but boy was it orange!

This past weekend was a blur and it’s been go, go, go ever since. I’ll try to have a N’Awlins recap soon, but in the meantime, bookmark this page and pin this recipe, it’s amazing! Oh, and we’re enjoying CILANTRO week right now. It’s tasty!

Quinoa salad with chicken, avocado and oranges (Derived from Sunset)

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups quinoa
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 3 teaspoons minced garlic, divided
• Zest of 1 lime
• 2 teaspoons plus 3 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 1 teaspoon black pepper, divided
• 1 container canned chicken (we use the larger cans from Costco)
• 1/4 cup lime juice
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 4 large oranges, peeled and segmented
• 2 ripe avocados, peeled and cubed

Preparation

1. Cook quinoa according to package directions and fluff with a fork. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool.
2. Stir together chili powder, 2 tsp. garlic, the lime zest, 2 tsp. oil, and 1/2 tsp. each salt and pepper. Add chicken and toss to coat and saute over medium heat. Since the chicken is already cooked, you just need to heat up to flavor the chicken. This should take less than five minutes
3. Add remaining ingredients to quinoa and chicken; toss to coat.