Sunny Quinoa #2

For the eighteenth day of the cleanse, I started with a fruit smoothie for breakfast and had the red lentil stew #2 from last night's supper for lunch. For supper, I started with a red leaf lettuce, dandelion greens, and arugula salad (with grated red beets - see top picture to the left to see the vibrant colors of the salad) and then had sunny quinoa #2 (similar to the red lentil stew last night, the sunny quinoa shares some similarities with the recipe from the January 7 post, but also has some different ingredients).

Here is the recipe for the sunny quinoa #2 (see middle picture to the left):
1 cup quinoa, 2 cups water, 1 garlic clove, minced, 1/8 tsp sea salt, 3/4 cup shitake mushrooms, chopped, 1/2 cup parsley, chopped, 2 green onions, chopped, 1/2 lemon, freshly squeezed, 1/4 cup sunflower seeds (preferably raw and unsalted)

Place 1 cup of quinoa and 2 cups of water in medium pot, bring to boil, reduce to simmer (to make quinoa fluffy, add extra water as needed during cooking process). Add garlic and sea salt once quinoa has been reduced to simmer. Once quinoa has been cooking for 10 minutes, add shitake mushrooms and parsley and cook for 10 more minutes. Remove from heat and add green onions, lemon juice, and sunflower seeds.

Quinoa is a high fibre, protein, calcium and iron rich non gluten whole grain that can be used in a number of different dishes as a replacement for rice and is a nice addition during a cleanse.

Prior to starting the quinoa, I started cooking pinto beans (which had been soaked earlier in the day, drained, rinsed, covered with fresh water, brought to boil, reduced to slightly lower heat for 40 minutes). Once the quinoa was started, I started a stir fry using olive oil, onion, garlic, zucchini, portobello mushrooms, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, purple kale, and seasoned the stir fry with dried oregano. Once all of the dishes were ready, the food was dished up, seasoned with flax oil and sea salt (see bottom picture to the left for finished meal). This was a light and delicious meal!