Quinoa with Garden String Beans and Shoots

All images © Valery Rizzo

It sure feels like summer today and believe it or not in this heat I was out in the garden planting a few new seedlings and collecting string beans and looking around for whatever else is starting to appear. I also grew a pot of pea shoots inside this week, since the birds were all lovin my shoots I had out in the garden. Shoots are so easy to grow and they have a lovely sweet peppery taste to them. So using what I could find in the garden and what I had in the kitchen I made a really light and super simple Quinoa with some Black Valentine string beans from the garden, topped with fresh pea shoots.

Quinoa with Garden String Beans and Shoots

Quinoa

String beans

pea shoots or tendrils

Extra-virgin olive oil

sea salt 

freshly ground black pepper

You can make as much or little of this as you want. 

Rinse your Quinoa before cooking. While your Quinoa is cooking wash the string beans with warm water and pluck off the stem ends. Take a bunch of string beans at a time and cut into small 1/4 pieces and steam all the cut beans in a separate pot.

When Quinoa and beans are ready combine together into a large bowl and drizzle with a bit of olive oil, some sea salt and some freshly ground black pepper. Mix every thing together. Plate your Quinoa and top with as many pea shoots as you'd like.

I also wanted to tell you about my three page spreads, featuring some of the urban farms in Brooklyn, in the summer issue of Chickpea Magazine. This Vegan Quarterly is filled with stories, recipes, art, design and great photography.

View a free digital version online or purchase a beautiful printed issue or subscribe at http://www.chickpeamagazine.com/issues

The Magazine is also available for purchase if your in Cincinnati at Park and Vine.

And finally I was very pleased to have my Sunset Park Shrimp Boil story featured this month on Kinfolk Magazine's Journal.