The best kind of leftovers.
Wednesday night was one of those evenings when you open the fridge to find a lot of food and leftovers, but not necessarily anything that immediately jumps out at you to make a meal.
I was hungry, rumbling tummy hungry after a pretty intense HIIT class, and only had ten minutes to whip something up before Bake Off started. Priorities you see…
Staring into the dim yellow light at the shelves crammed with food, I thought I’d try and have a rummage to work my way through and not let anything go to waste. Cooked sausages, check. Cold tomato passata, check. Random assortment of vegetables, double check.
Throwing a whole load of tasty bits into a big pan I made some sort of sausage tomato concoction with onions, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, loads of fresh herbs and quite a bit of garlic and chilli. Sometimes this bung it all in technique works really well, and sometimes you end up with something that both looks and tastes revolting. Luckily on this occasion, it wasn’t half bad!
The issue I had was that in my starving state, and without any pasta or rice in the cupboard, I wanted some carbs to satiate my appetite, which is when I remembered the packet that Merchant Gourmet* had sent so that I could try their new British Quinoa and Brown Rice. You can tell the hunger was real as there was no time to faff around too much with photographing it in the dark, which, as you can see, didn’t necessarily lead to my best work!
Not only does British Quinoa reduce food miles, but it’s also helping solve the issues that the latest boom in popularity of the grain has caused. In short, Western demand has increased the price of quinoa so much in it’s native countries, that though once a staple in local’s diets, they no longer can afford to eat it, and there’s pressure to turn land with diverse crops into a quinoa monoculture. There’s loads of articles online about this, but it also links quite nicely in with my discussion on superfoods recently.
Therefore, if we can grown quinoa on home soil, it’s a big tick in my book. That, and it tastes delicious with a plate of assorted sausagey leftovers, AND only takes 60 seconds in the microwave!
*This item was sent to me for review, but all opinions are my own!
