Honey Glazed String Beans & Radish Quinoa

New and interesting dishes have been my goal for the last few nights. Fed up with the same 7 or 8 recipes I make every week, it's been my goal to try new textures and flavors.  After buying our bulk 25 pound box of quinoa, we've been less hesitant to cook with it. While it's one of our favorite staples in the house, buying a small box from the grocery store was costing us around $5+ at two a week so we limited our intake to save some money.  Now, we're free to cook with it as much as we please.

This was a "thrown-together" recipe out of necessity to get rid of some string beans in the fridge and use up a few of the radishes I picked out of the garden this morning. Surprisingly, cooked radishes are a pleasant change from the raw radishes we eat in our salads daily.

Onto the meal:

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa + 2 cups water (cook per box directions)

1 teaspoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

4 large radishes (6 or 7 small), sliced & quartered

1/2 small onion, diced

3 cloves garlic, minced

Bunch of stringbeans

2 teaspoons honey (or to taste)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2 teaspoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon thyme

2 T crushed walnuts

1/4 cup halved cherry tomatoes

Directions:

1. Cook your quinoa according to package directions. (Usually 2 parts water, 1 part quinoa. Bring to boil, then reduced to low-medium heat for about 20 minutes.)

2. In pan, add EVOO and allow to heat up. Add your radish, onion, and garlic. Allow to cook on medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes, stir every minute.

3. Add stringbeans, cover, turn to low-medium heat and allow to cook for 5-7 minutes. Stir halfway through.

4. Add honey and lemon, and allow to cook for about a minute. Toss in thyme and walnuts. Cover and cook 2 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

5. Toss in walnut and cherry tomatoes.

6. Serve string bean/radish mixture on top of quinoa on a plate. Enjoy!

 

The honey and lemon in this dish add a wonderfully sweet and fresh flavor to what could have been a fairly heavy dish with all this quinoa.  Hopefully this encourages you to explore some diverse and interesting ingredients to change up the taste of some of your dishes!

-Lacey