Quinoa with Chicken and Slow Roasted Squash

Tonight's supper featured five CSA ingredients: summer squash, patty pan squash, zucchini, green bell peppers, and cilantro.

I decided to add the green bell peppers at the last minute well into the process, so they did not get pictured.

First, I needed to slow roast the veggies. I cut the squash and zucchini thin and spread it out in a foil lined roasting pan. I also added the green peppers at this step. I sliced them and put them in the roasting pan as well. I couldn't fit all the raw veggies into one roasting pan so I used two. then I drizzled olive oil on them, salted and peppered them, and put just a little sprinkling of roasted red pepper. When I have made similar recipes in the past, I also roasted eggplant and onions this way. I didn't have any of those on hand tonight though.

Then, I put them in the oven at 325 for 55 minutes. I stirred them and flipped them over about half way through. They shrunk significantly, so I ended up putting them all in one pan. Here is what they looked like after the roasting:

While the veggies were cooking, I made the Chicken and Quinoa. I cubed 4 chicken breasts and cut all the fat and gristle off. Then I seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, turmeric, garlic powder, and mustard powder. Just a light sprinkling of each of the spices over the chicken does the trick.

Here is what the chicken looked like going into the pan:

In the pan I put about 1tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp of lemon juice. Then I cooked the chicken on medium until the cubes of chicken were cooked through (about 8 minutes). I kept the temperature low so that the chicken cubes did not brown and just simmered in the olive oil and lemon juice.

I cooked 1 cup of Quinoa. For those of you who have never worked with Quinoa, it is a delicious whole grain. It cooks like rice or couscous. It tastes very similar to couscous, but with a nuttier flavor. First, I toasted the quinoa in a pan. Then I mixed 1 cup of quinoa with 2 cups of chicken broth. I brought it to a boil. Then I reduced the heat to simmering, covered the pan, and waited 15 minutes. All the liquid was gone, so all I had to do was fluff the quinoa and it was ready to serve.

Finally, I put the quinoa in a serving dish, mixed in the roasted veggies, the chicken cubes (without the liquid in the chicken pan), and tossed in the fresh cilantro (that had been washed and torn off the stems). Then I topped the whole dish off with some grated reggano cheese.