Quinoa with Roasted Garlic, Tomatoes, and Spinach

Once again, I decided to try a recipe out from my new August Cooking Light.  Tonight, I made Quinoa with Roasted Garlic, Tomatoes, and Spinach.  This is a side dish but my roommate and I doubled the recipe and made it for 2 meals.   I have never cooked with quinoa and I didn’t even know where to find it in the grocery store (which is rare because I know everything in my grocery store).   I had to call my mom to ask her where she would find her quinoa.  Apparently I was pronouncing it wrong (pronounced KEEN-Wah.)  I eventually found it in the organic sections (where would we be without super moms!)

Roasting the garlic is pretty easy- just peel some of the papery skin off and then cut it half (so you are basically cutting every piece of garlic in half.)  Next, wrap it in aluminum foil and bake for an hour at 350 degrees.  The recipe it pretty simple and besides the hour it takes the roast the garlic, it is pretty quick.   It was so good that I ate my serving for tomorrows lunch!   Oops!

I used an onion instead of shallots because I already had one, and the garlic bunch in the picture is not a whole one because the whole one is in the oven during this picture.   I also used Pecorino Romano cheese instead of parm because I like it better.

Enjoy!

-K