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Making Lemonade...Lemony Quinoa & Roasted Green Veggies

Being Thankful
I don't know how many of you read about the deadly storms that rolled through (again) last night. But sadly, 10 lives were lost. I count myself so lucky. My family is all safe, and none of us had any damage to our homes or vehicles last night. We have another round of severe weather heading our way again tonight.

The ground is saturated at this point (flooding in lower lying areas). So it's highly likely to see even more large trees topple. On my way to work this morning, I saw two trees down and tons of debris strewn everywhere. We weren't even hit hard compared to many areas.

Seeing some of the photos of the destruction definitely made me so very thankful that the most damage we've had so far is hail damage on our vehicles. So minor in comparison. Here are a couple of awesome photos I saw (definitely not taken by me, my butt was inside).

Wall cloud photo from KARK (source)

Funnel cloud in my hometown close to Jason's parent's home (source)

And if you want to see a video taken in my city (I hope it works):


Spinning 
Thankfully it wasn't rainy all day today, just dark and dreary with extreme humidity. Definitely thankful for the bit of reprieve from the rain for a bit. We needed to try to dry out a bit before tonight's storms move in. I almost went for a run, but was worried about trees down and flooding on the river trails.

My legs are seriously killing me from Sunday's leg workout. I haven't hurt this bad since I started STS for the first time 3 years ago. So what do I do? I go to spin class, because that's a smart option.... I really thought I might breakdown in class.

But I got through it darn it. I certainly felt like a badass after making it to the end today ;-) I was one sweaty mess too. The humidity (even indoors) is killer. I don't care if I had my own personal fan on me, today everyone was drenched - even those who spent more time chatting than spinning (insert annoyed look).

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons (sort of)
Still trying to use up veggies before our trip. I apparently had mostly green veggies to use up. I started trying to think about the best way to use them (asparagus, zucchini, broccoli). They just screamed spring and most of them go very well with lemon. So, I ended up coming up with Lemony Quinoa and Roasted Green Veggies. With all the storms and such, it seemed sort of like the whole making lemonade adage.

Lemony Quinoa and Roasted Green Veggies
Ingredients:
1/2 bunch asparagus, chopped
Small bunch broccoli, chopped
1 small or 1/2 larger zucchini, chopped
1 1/2 cups chickpeas
To taste: lemon pepper spice blend, sea salt
1 cup quinoa
2 cups vegetable broth (or water)
1-2 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
To taste: sea salt, parsley, lemon juice
Handful baby spinach (optional)


Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cook quinoa in liquid per package directions. At the end, stir in nutritional yeast flakes, parsley, salt, lemon pepper spice blend, and lemon juice.

In the meantime, place veggies on baking sheet and lightly sprinkle with extra-virgin olive oil then sprinkle on the lemon pepper spice blend and sea salt. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, tossing halfway.

On another small baking sheet, spread out the chickpeas and sprinkle with olive oil and same seasonings for veggies. Bake approximately 40 minutes or until toasty and crispy.

In a large bowl, combine quinoa, veggies, and chickpeas. Stir in the spinach and re-season if needed. The heat from the quinoa and veggies will wilt the spinach.
 
 

I was really happy with how this turned out. I think that if you wanted a bit of a salty hit to it, sundried tomatoes or kalamata olives would be fantastic. Or, if you wanted to keep with the green theme, go with capers. I think this would be great warm or room temperature - so a great summer salad as well.

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