This recipe takes about 30-40 minutes to make and serves 2 people.
It’s plant based/vegan and mainly whole foods, it’s also soy free, gluten free and nut free. It’s easy to make and just so filling, nourishing, healthy and rich in protein. Also a good one for dinner, meal prepping and to take with you as a lunch.
Ingredients
For the bowl:
- 1 small Hokkaido pumpkin
- 3/4 cup quinoa
- 1,5 cup veggie stock or water +1 tsp. veggie stock powder
- 1 small onion
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1/2 tbsp. oil
- 1 tsp. of Cajun spice mix, without added salt*
- 1 can or 1,5 cup cooked kidney beans
- 3-4 hands of rocket or any other greens
- 1 tomato
- 1/3 of a cucumber
- Some sprouts (optional)
For the dressing:
- 80 ml water (more or less depending on your consistency preference)
- 2-3 tbsp. or 60g tahini (I also use the thick tahini that did sink to the bottom of the jar for blended dressings)
- Juice of 1/2 small lemon
- Pinch of salt
- 1 clove of garlic (optional)
- 1 tsp. maple syrup (optional)
- 2 tbsp. fresh/frozen parsley or other herb (optional)
Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 200 °C or 400 °F. Clean and cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds and slice the pumpkin. I never peel Hokkaido pumpkins, you can just eat the peel as well. Put them on a lined baking tray in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, test with a fork if they are soft. If you are lucky you will have a really sweet pumpkin which will caramelize in the oven, my favorites!
- Put the quinoa along with the veggie stock in a pan and bring to a boil on medium high heat. Boil the quinoa until the liquid has been absorbed and reduced to about the level of the quinoa or slightly below, than take the pot from the stove, cover with a lid and let sit until the quinoa has absorbed the rest of the liquid.
- Cut the onion and garlic and sauté with the oil in a pan on medium heat. When the onion starts to become soft, add the Cajun spice to it and sauté a little more until fragrant. Meanwhile wash the kidney beans in a strainer and add them to the pan. Stir fry a little until the beans are hot.
- Wash and cut the tomato and cucumber.
- For the dressing, put all the ingredients except for the chopped parsley to a little blender and blend, then afterwards stir in the parsley, or blend the parsley in also to become a slight green dressing. If you don’t have a small blender, just stir everything together in a bowl or jar. In this case, use liquid tahini and crushed garlic.
- To serve, make a bed of greens like rocket in your bowl. Top it wit the other components side by side as in the picture or however you like. Drizzle with dressing.
*I get my Cajun spice mix from a local spice shop where they mix it themselves, it’s a blend of pure spices without salt and any other unnecessary additives. If you buy a mix, check the ingredient list or ask those who mixed it for you to make sure it’s without salt. This way you can use as many of the spices as you like without using to much salt.
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