CIC: Lemongrass & Quinoa

I am pretty excited about this month’s Crazy Ingredient Challenge. While I didn’t vote for either of these ingredients, I’m glad they won. These two ingredients lend themselves towards healthy cooking, perfect for that post-holiday detox. I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else made.

I actually found my inspiration during a search of ideas for my new Stir Fry Day Friday theme this year. Lemongrass shrimp. I reserved some of the flavoring mixture to mix into the quinoa. (I wanted to combine the two ingredients, not serve them together.) So if you don’t like or don’t want the shrimp, you can still have a beautiful, flavorful quinoa as a side to your protein of choice. You could even substitute chicken and keep the lemongrass flavor elements.

Lemongrass Shrimp with Quinoa

Ingredients:

• 1 C uncooked quinoa
• 2 1/2 tbsp lemongrass paste
• zest 1 lime
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tsp grated ginger
• 1-2 tsp chili paste, to taste
• 1 tbsp canola oil
• 1 lb shrimp
• 1 tbsp fish sauce

Steps:

1. Cook quinoa according to package direction. (General rule of thumb is 1 C quinoa:2 C liquid)
2. In a small bowl combine lemongrass, lime zest, garlic, ginger, and chili paste. Set aside 1/3 of the mixture for the quinoa.
3. Heat the canola oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Cook shrimp 2 minutes on each side, or until cooked through. Stir in 2/3 of the lemongrass mixture and cook one minute. Toss in the fish sauce.
4. Mix the remaining lemongrass mixture into the cooked quinoa.
5. Serve shimp overtop the quinoa.

*The shrimp recipe is adapted from Adam at http://unorthodoxepicure.com/2014/10/02/food-snob-chronicles-shrimp-the-real-chicken-of-the-sea-2/*

To see the other bloggers who participated in this month’s Crazy Ingredient Challenge click on the link below.

An InLinkz Link-up