Lenten Vegetarianism

As an observer of the "Raised Southern Baptist, But Now Mostly Methodist With an Inner Catholic" faith, I gave up meat for Lent. All meat, including fish. Oooh, fishies, delicious fishies. The raw fishies, the perfectly grilled fishies...Let's just say that giving up red meat/poultry is really no big deal, but abstaining from fish is a pretty huge sacrifice for me.

Anyway, I wanted to use this opportunity to expand my vegetarian horizons. Save for a couple of years during college, vegetarian main courses haven't really had a starring role in my go-to meal line-up (and even then, to be perfectly honest, "dinner" consisted mainly of popcorn, cheese, and peanut butter sandwiches).

At the beginning of Lent, I was relying on the processed vegetarian meat-like products to take the place of meat in meals I'd normally have made, but let's be honest...this stuff is really kind of gross if you let yourself think about it too much. I found myself eating a version of meatless "ground beef", trying to convince myself that it wasn't all that bad but, all the while, breathing through my nose and wondering if my body was really better off eating a highly-processed soy protein product instead of something like lean ground turkey breast. After a few days of forcing myself to eat the taco-delight leftovers, I decided that it wasn't worth it and fed the mystery meatless-meat to my unsuspecting dog instead.

And then I reverted back to college and made myself a month's worth of macaroni and cheese. And then I realized two things: 1) that I've come a long way since college, 2) that I can no longer live on mac and cheese alone, and 3) that mac and cheese was a total cop out. This most recent foray into vegetarianism was supposed to be an adventure. I was supposed to be expanding my horizons and trying new things. I was supposed to be eating more healthfully, not more cheese-fully. What the heck was wrong with me?

Enter The Huffington Post.

Yesterday on Facebook, the folks at Eating Well posted a link to an article in The Huffington Post titled, "Wait, What's So Great About Quinoa Anyway?" I've actually been wondering that for some time. Quinoa has been popping up in all of my usual recipe-hunting grounds for the past few years, but I've just put on the blinders and bypassed any recipe that featured this mystery grain. See, I have a confession. I'm not a huge fan of trendier, healthier grains (like brown rice and barley). I'll eat them if I have to, but if given the choice, I will opt for white rice any day. I don't know why. Call me a product of my upbringing, where things like brown rice and tofu didn't exist. However, after reading this article, I pretty much made up my mind to take off the training wheels and jump into something new--something with quinoa.

As luck would have it, my friend Claudia had picked up lunch from My Fit Foods in Dallas, and her lunch just happened to come with a side of quinoa. How fortuitous! The Grain Gods were smiling. Cad offered me a taste, and to my utter surprise, it was actually good. Not just okay, but pretty delicious. Not at all what I expected. Light and fluffy like my beloved white rice, but different...like a soft cous cous. It sealed the deal. I even had the perfect recipe in mind to try.

I remembered that Maria, a friend of mine from college, posted a recipe on her food blog sometime last year for her Quinoa Quiche, and again, with the luck, she had re-posted the recipe recently as a part of her family's weekly menu plan. Being a lover and oft-baker of quiche, it sounded right up my ally. I left work, hit the Rosemeade Farmers Market on the way home and grabbed the necessities: a bag of quinoa, onions, and a red bell pepper. Sadly, there was no broccoli rabe (from Maria's original Quinoa Pie recipe) to be found at the market, so I just decided to use up what I had at home in the crisper--a small zucchini and some green bell pepper--instead. But, as I discovered, the beauty of this recipe is that it doesn't much matter what veggies you decide to use, because the final result is bound to be delicious anyway.

I won't repost Maria's recipe here (that's what the links are for), but I'll tell you what I did differently:

• Substituted a mixture of red bell pepper, green bell pepper, zucchini and mushrooms for the 2 cups of bell pepper (my mixture ended up being about 2 1/2 cups)
  
• Used 4 eggs instead of 3 to accommodate the extra veggies I threw in

The verdict? Delicious and light, quiche-y but not heavy...in short, the perfect weeknight "I decided to skip the gym and cook something new instead" meal. I will definitely be putting this one into the regular rotation, and trying it with a combination of different veggies.

My First Quinoa Quiche:

And p.s. I tossed those mac and cheese leftovers faster than I could say "quinoa".