No-Recipe Meal

My last post was about the need to read a recipe in its entirety. Today's post is about cooking without a recipe. 

Yesterday afternoon after I had baked meatballs for company this weekend and had gotten the base for chocolate ice cream made, I turned my attention to a more immediate subject...supper for Reg and me. Having had two client cook days this week, I knew that I had a few vegetables left that needed to be used so I opted to do construct a grilled veggie and quinoa meal. I did prepare the quinoa per the package instructions, but for the rest of the meal I just winged it.

Here's what I had. A partial piece of yellow bell pepper, a whole red bell pepper, asparagus, one eggplant, kale, and some grape tomatoes.

  

I prepared the quinoa using the leftover vegetable stock and proceeded to prep the vegetables. I cut them up into chunks, expect the tomatoes, drizzled them with a little olive oil and seasoned them with marjoram and a little salt and pepper.

I cranked up the grill to high and do it would get nice and hot. Since I had fresh corn on the cob to use as well, I threw those on first, husk and all. The corn had roasted about ten minutes when I put the rest of the vegetables in a grill pan and got them on the fire.

Notice how nicely the corn is roasting? I love to cook my corn this way. I can't even remember the last time I boiled corn in a pot. This is SO much better!

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, I cut the kale off the stems and rough chopped it. I threw it in a hot pan with just a little olive oil and cooked it down to a tender crisp texture. Once cooked, I added it to my prepared quinoa. I found a few Mediterranean olives in the recesses of my refrigerator so I chopped them and added them to the mix. To give it a pop, I added the juice of a lemon. Wow! What a difference that made!

It only took about ten more minutes for my corn to finish cooking and the vegetables to get done. Here's what I had after I finished my "No Recipe Meal."

                         

 Reg, aka The Husband, commented on the nice differences in textures and flavors. I told him that I didn't want it to be "one note" and it appeared that I had succeeded. I think I have been watching too many episodes of Chopped!