I've touted the benefits of quinoa earlier here and I cannot say how much I love cooking with quinoa! I've been whipping up freezer meals in preparation for Baby V's arrival. I don't want to be eating fast food or making myself quick unhealthy meals while I'm at home figuring out Baby V the rubix cube.
Instead of making a chore out of freezer meals, I usually make them, eat them, then freeze away the leftovers. Easy peasy.
I found the recipe for the Black Bean, Sweet Potato, and Quinoa Chili as I was browsing along in The Kitchn, very delicious!
I made a few adaptations to the recipe. Instead of waiting hours for the chili to cook, I used two 14 oz cans of pinto beans (hey, I didn't realize I was out of black beans until I started cooking - oops!), including the bean juice and I added roughly 3 cups of water to the chili. Instead of buying chipotle chilies, I used a can of green chilies from the local grocery store. The green chilies didn't really add much of a kick to the chili, next time I'll try two cans instead or upping the amount of spicy spices put in the chili. In all, it took me a little over an hour to make the chili.
Soooo good!
Here's a tip for freezing soup - this totally helps with keeping my freezer organized. Let the soup cool off entirely. Pour soup in zip loc bags (I put mine in sandwich sized bags since I wanted them in single portion servings). Lie the bags flat on a cookie sheet and place in your freezer. Once the soup freezes, you can stack the bags away in your freezer in an orderly fashion.
