An easy dinner and an even easier lunch

One night last week I didn't leave myself much time for cooking dinner. And this hearty one-pot meal was the delicious result! There's no recipe, but the technique is no secret, and adaptable to whatever ingredients you have on hand.

I simply diced 3 medium carrots and cooked them for about 15 minutes in plenty of water (with a generous shake of dehydrated garlic granules and a teaspoon of fennel seeds). Then I added 1.5 cups of rinsed quinoa and 3 cups of water, and cooked it for another 10 minutes. Lastly, I added about a few finely sliced Brussels sprouts that needed using up, a cup of finely chopped cauliflower and a cup of cooked black beans, and cooked it for just 5 minutes (because Sjaan mentioned at our last cooking demo that cauliflower is best eaten as lightly cooked as possible).
I seasoned the soup with smoked paprika, half a bunch of finely chopped coriander leaves and stalks and some soya sauce.
It was delicious! Billy had it as is; Mack and I topped ours with karengo flakes (NZ seaweed, yum yum: that's the very dark stuff you can see at the top of the photo) and Parmazano.
And there was just enough leftover for my lunch the next day ;-)

I made a very similar meal a couple of days later, but this time based on buckwheat instead of quinoa, and I added lots of finely diced red cabbage for the last few minutes of cooking time.