Dinner Ideas

At work, I often think about what I am going to make for dinner. I ponder at my desk, browse various food websites and blogs, and take inventory of what I currently have at stock.

It’s best for me to have a plan once I leave work; it’ll save me last minute rushes to the grocery store or missing ingredients well into cooking.

Yesterday, I bought a bag of salad mix, brie, mini baguettes, bruschetta mix, an olive rustic bread, and a can of black-eyed peas.

After looking through Elie Kreuger’s section of the Food Network, I was led to the vegetarian arena of the website. “Artichoke panzanella.” This was perfect! Panzanella is an Italian salad with bread. It’s always been a favorite dish idea and I had good bread, salad mix, bruschetta mix (tomatoes, basil,etc) and I could get cucumbers on my way to Longs later…

To complement, I could make Black-eyed peas and Quinoa croquettes. This is basically mashed beans, herbs, bread crumbs, and cooked quinoa, baked into little circle goodness. You could actually make these with any beans or grains (brown rice anyone?) and they still turn out to be the yummy little cakes they should be.

The original idea of these croquettes are from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
o black-eyed peas (I use canned)
o ½ c quinoa
o 1 T olive oil
o 1 T soy sauce
o Herbs (I use a shawarma mix that I got at a Persian grocery store)
o ½ c bread crumbs
o Salt/pepper
o 2 t olive oil

Rinse and cook Quinoa as directed.

Mash beans in a bowl. Stir in oil and soy sauce, then add quinoa, herbs. The mixture should be thick and slightly sticky.

Preheat oven to 350.

Spray/grease a cookie sheet with olive oil. Combine remaining ingredients in a small bowl. Roll the black-eyed pea mixture into balls and flatten slightly, then coat with bread crumbs and set on cookie sheet.

Bake 20 minutes, turn each croquette, and bake another 20 minutes.


= Panzanella and Black-eyed pea-quinoa croquettes sounds like a well-rounded meal to me!