Quinoa Tabbouleh with Chicken

Today I have the lovely Tatum guest posing for me. We met, just recently, in real life, and it was a delightful pleasure, as is Tatum's blog and her recipes...

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Hiya :)  I am Tatum, I blog at From Somewhere in My Imagination and I am very excited to be guest posting for Lucy.  I am a busy person, wife and mum of four.  I'm a mining engineer, crafter, sister, daughter, blogger, friend and domestic goddess (well in the kitchen at least) to name just a few of the roles that make up who I am.

I grew up with some distorted views on my own body image that I have slowly, but surely (mostly) gotten over as I've gotten older.  These days it just seems odd to me that I saw myself as 'needing to loose weight' when I weighed around 10kg less than I do right now.  I sit comfortably within a healthy BMI range and these days my key indicators are how I feel and look in the mirror, not how much I weigh.
I love to exercise, for the most part I love to run but finding time can be tricky.  I also love food.  Last year I completed a round of Michelle Bridges' 12WBT, what I learnt from that program will stay with me for life.  What it boils down to, Calories in & Calories burnt = weight loss, no rocket science needed!

Ever since, when I am feeling the need to trim a bit out of my diet I aim to cut my own meals back to around the 300-350 calorie mark.  Today I am sharing one of those with you.

Over the years I have heard quite alot about quinoa, often hearing it referred to as a 'superfood'.  As much as I love food I can be a bit reluctant to try new things, in case they taste awful!

I recently (finally) tried quinoa for the first time and am a total convert!  It is expensive compared to other grains (I'm talking $6-$7 for 500g at the supermarket...look in the health food section) but a little goes a long way.

After cooking up my first batch I quickly had ideas for plenty of other ways to use it.  I'll definitely be using it as a substitute for rice in dishes like pilaf and sushi and it's also a great replacement for cous cous.  I don't think my family would notice if I served it with curry instead of rice and I'm pretty sure I could get away with replacing it as the side to stir fry.

For my first experiment I 'replaced' the cracked wheat you would normally use in tabbouleh and incorporated chicken to make an 'all in one' warm salad.

Quinoa Tabbouleh with Chicken - Serves 4 -  320 calories/serve

 

Ingredients

150g (raw weight) quinoa
300g Chicken Breast, preferably free range
50g Low Fat greek yoghurt
1 tsp Sumac
1 punnet Cherry tomatoes, halved
 2 lebanese cucumbers, peeled and cut into batons
1 large, wholemeal pita bread, toasted in hot oven for about 7 minutes until golden brown.
Leaves from 1 bunch flat leaf parsley, washed well.
Juice of 1 lemon

Method

Mix together the yoghurt and sumac, use to coat the chicken breast and set aside while you get started on the quinoa and chop the tomatoes and cucumber.
Cook the quinoa in water according to the instructions on the packet.  Be careful not to overcook it because it will get a bit mushy.
Drain the quinoa and leave it to cool.
Heat a grill plate or the barbecue and cook the chicken breast.  Leave aside to rest.
Wash the parsley well and pick the leaves from the bunch.
Toast the pita bread in a hot oven until golden brown and crispy.
In a large serving bowl mix together the tomatoes, cucumber and quinoa.
Add the chicken, parsley and lemon juice.  Finish with the broken up pita bread and season to taste with freshly cracked pepper.
Serve to the table, divide into serving bowls and dig in.

Hope you give the keen-wah a go and enjoy it as much as we did!

I post recipes regular (both low cal and regular ones) so if you'd to see more you might like to "Like" my facebook page here or follow me on twitter, where I talk all kinds of nonsense!

Tatum xx