Cleaning and Cooking in the Kitchen
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I love to cook! In fact, if I had my way, I would totally spend all of my free time cooking in the kitchen. I hesitate to call myself a chef though because what I do in the kitchen is definitely more playing than anything of actual skill.
Of course, with playing around in the kitchen, comes a bunch of big messes. I’ve been known to knock over full boxes of quinoa onto the floor or have little pieces of pasta fall onto the floor when I break the spaghetti in smaller pieces for my kids to eat. There is a little corner in my kitchen that gets all the little extras that fall and don’t get noticed because I am focused on the food and not the clean up. Then, when I run the little mini vacuum around the kitchen to do our nightly cheerio pick up, that food just gets bypassed because it is too far in the corner for the little vacuum to reach.
Since we got our Miele though, the pile of food that hangs out in our kitchen has gotten smaller and smaller. No matter how much rice I cook or pasta I make, I don’t really have to work very hard to keep my little food hiding corner clean. I just use the little wand and get all my extra food up.
So, I am sure you are wondering what recipe I was making when I spilled an entire box of quinoa, right? Well, I am here to share it with you today.
What You’ll Need:
1 container of grape tomatoes
3 tsp olive oil, divided
2 cups baby spinach
1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Marinade
1 Tbsp fresh oregano, finely chopped
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, minced
salt and pepper to taste (~1/2 tsp each)
Let’s Make It:
1) Combine oregano, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil and whisk until well combined. {I actually just shake it in a jar}
2) Reserve 1/4 cup of marinade. Pour the remaining marinade over the chicken breasts and marinate for 30 minutes.
2) Heat 2 tsp of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Cook chicken for 4-5 minutes on each side or until fully cooked.
3) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss grape tomatoes with 1 tsp of olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes.
4) In a large bowl, combine the quinoa, baby spinach and tomatoes. Toss well and pour marinade over salad mixture. Add to plates and top with sliced, cooked chicken.
Ingredients
- 1 container of grape tomatoes
- 3 tsp olive oil divided
- 2 cups baby spinach
- 1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa
- 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 1 Tbsp fresh oregano finely chopped
- 1/3 cup lemon juice
- 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard
- 1 garlic clove minced
- salt and pepper to taste ~1/2 tsp each
Instructions
- Combine oregano, lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil and whisk until well combined. {I actually just shake it in a jar}
- Reserve 1/4 cup of marinade. Pour the remaining marinade over the chicken breasts and marinate for 30 minutes.
- Heat 2 tsp of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Cook chicken for 4-5 minutes on each side or until fully cooked.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss grape tomatoes with 1 tsp of olive oil and place on a baking sheet. Roast in the oven for 10 minutes.
- In a large bowl, combine the quinoa, baby spinach and tomatoes. Toss well and pour marinade over salad mixture. Add to plates and top with sliced, cooked chicken.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
I think I have multiple food corners haha. This chicken dish sounds amazing. Perfect meal after the holiday binge haha 🙂
Happy Blogging!
Happy Valley Chow
looks like my kitchen – I cannot keep up with 7 of us in our home as soon as I clean it the mess is back in a matter of seconds! Your recipe looks good!
yum! That looks SO good! I love Quinoa! Pinning!
Fun post! Thanks for sharing, quinoa is my new favorite and it’s nice to have a great chicken recipe to try! Pinning for later too. 🙂
WOW, what an amazing quinoa recipe! YUMMO! 🙂
This sounds delicious! I have never cooked with quinoa before, but want to add it to my list this year!
Well this looks pretty, delicious, and healthy! Can’t wait to try it.
Wow that looks tasty and very healthy, I will have to try this recipe. I like the photo of your food corner lol
I have a food corner. It just gets to be a mess.
I am going to try this with fish! Yummy!
I love quinoa! It’s so healthy and has so much protein. I bet my husband would love this!
Mmm, and here I was about to leave for the grocery store. Glad I read this first. I’m adding these ingredients to my list. 🙂
Oh my GOSH! I detest food corners and I fight them like crazy, but they win! They win all the time because like you, I’m busy trying to feed my kids healthy meals that I cook from scratch. I love that miele. Never seen that before. I think I might be a little bit jealous of that and the delicious looking quinoa recipe. YUM!
I’ve never has quinoa but this looks amazing (your photos are awesome too by the way!) I’ll check it out in the store next time I’m there.
That salad looks amazing and healthy too! I have got to try it!
I been wanting to know how to prepare Quinoa. These recipes looks so yummy…I have to try out.
Oh, my mom had a Miele vacuum when I was growing up. It’s still working hard at my sister Donna’s house. Those are the BEST vacuums hands down!!
I need Miele to make some magic happen in my food corners, crevices, and crannies. It gets ridiculous!
That recipe looks outstanding!!! So, so yummy!
That sounds so good! Yum! I have a food corner too. Ugh! I hate to clean it.
I have such a corner, and Abbie, my “Bagel” (that’s a dog who’s a mix of Black Lab and Beagle) is right there to clean it up!! Your recipe sounds amazing!
This is like my EVERY DAY food corner..lol..i have to clean it EVERY DAY. Your food looks TASTY
Love quinoa! Love clean floors, too…and I really need to keep them clean now, because my 10mo finds everything I drop!
I think a mess goes along with a great meal! Passion happens in the kitchen and so do messes! That chicken looks fantastic!
I’m going to have to make this!
The meal you prepared looks delicious. I need that vacuum for all the food corners in my kitchen.
Holy moly! This looks amazing. I love quinoa and I’m always looking for new recipes to make with it. And I totally understand what you mean with your “food corner”… though for me, it just seems to accumulate right under the cabinets. Haha!
This looks delicious. I am always looking for recipes that use chicken.
That vacuum would make such a huge difference in all my corners! I may never have to move furniture again! Loving this healthy recipe!
Your corner looks a lot like mine. With a family of 6 and 1 being a toddler there is always a mess..I’m loving the look of the recipe..thanks for sharing.
Ugh! I HATE cleaning floors. I need a really good vacuum. My current one I have had for about 4 years now and it’s huge and bulky and I am not even sure it does the job! lol. I definitely have a “food corner”! Drives me nuts! Ha, are there nuts on my floor too?
I love quinoa! I’m always looking for a new way to use it and this look amazing!
I saw the picture and just laughed… my corners look the same way. Delicious chicken!
I have a couple of food corners also. That recipe looks yummy!
i love to eat qunioa and that meal looks fantastic!
This looks delicious! I love anything with quinoa.