Tasty Tuesday: Mini Ham & Cheese Quinoa Cups

Thank you pinterest for this recipe find which also lead to a new blog — Iowa Girl Eats!  Not sure how we haven’t stumbled upon Kristin’s blog or her on twitter yet, but glad we finally did!  Not only is she giving her readers tasty recipes to try but she’s also a runner – like us!

Recently I was on the search for some sort of mini quiche, mini frittata, or something of that nature for a baby shower and I stumbled upon the mini ham & cheese quinoa cups. I gave them a test run the week of the shower,  thought they were fabulous and was ready to count them as a part of my contribution to the shower food!

This recipe makes 28 mini cups and calls for –

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked quinoa (about 3/4 cup uncooked)

2 eggs

2 egg whites

1 cup zucchini, shredded

1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1/2 cup diced ham

1/4 cup parsley, chopped

2 Tablespoons parmesan cheese

2 green onions, sliced

salt & pepper to taste

To get started preheat that oven to 350 degrees and get going on cooking and chopping up the ingredients!  Follow the instructions on the box of your quinoa to cook it correctly.

My favorite vegetable chopping/slicing contraption!!

Combine ALL of the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix it all up!

Grab your mini muffin pans and spray them with a non-stick spray and don’t just lightly spray make sure you really cover the pans with the non-stick spray.  Begin spooning out the mixture into each muffin pan.

I used normal size muffin pans on my first go ’round

The recipe calls for cooking them about 15-20 minutes, but I either have always had the slowest cooking oven in the world or….well, I don’t know what.  I definitely left them in the oven for more like 25-30 minutes, so just make sure to watch the sides and when they start to turn a golden brown you are safe to take them out of the oven.  Give them about 5 minutes to cool then remove the quinoa cups from the muffin pan.

There you go! Cute little delicious Ham & Cheese Quinoa Cups.  Next I’ll have to get brave and experiment with different ingredients!

And here is how the nutrition stacks up on the quinoa cups –

Should also add that these mini cups reheat well. If you were to make them for say a baby shower or something similar like I did the mix does well if you make it the night before, refrigerate and cook them the next day.  Or you could simply make about half the recipe, save the rest of the mix and make it the next day.

Are you a big quinoa fan? What’s your favorite recipe involving quinoa?

Welp, March is Over So Time for Our Report Card & April Goals

Y’all, how is it already April?! Good Lord, time flies!  Well, here is how we measured up for March’s report card! Hope we aren’t grounded!

Teal

1. Paint Bedroom and guest room for real this time. Spring break should make this possible! A+: Done! I did this all by myself from 8-1am one day during spring break! So glad that is done. Every room in my house is now painted! Wahoo.

2. Survive my 2 week break from running and cardio by not cheating. I am going to give my body a true rest. I think it is overworked and is partially to blame for the plateau of weight-loss, my injury and that it is not fully gone, and from being tired from having 2 jobs and grad school. The break will be hard because rest is really not part of my vocabulary but it’s a needed part of life. Must get better.

A: I survived this and technically started cardio back one day early. I am happy to say that I have no foot pain, well minus our run from Saturday, but it feels great! I think my body feels better, but is ready to get back into training. Running has not been what I want but I am glad I did this. I really only ran 2 times last month outside of the 3 races we did. So it really was a good well needed break!

 

3. Yoga 12 times this month. This will be how I survive the “rest” from running/cardio. Low impact, restorative, and a good way to focus on flexibility.

C: I only went 6 times. I think my break went to my head because I really didn’t want to do anything. I was, however able to earn new Yoga bling for my 50th class this month.

 

4.  Finish Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes F: Not only did I not finish this book I A) can’t find it and B) I read the Hunger Games instead! Whoops.

 

Beth

1.  Run a sub 2:00 hour half marathon at Rock ‘n’ Roll Dallas! A+: I did it!  In case you need the proof here it is 🙂

2. Lose 5 pounds. Seriously, y’all!! I need to get SERIOUS about take some pounds off for my wedding! F: Pretty sure I gained a pound. Womp! Womp!

3. Get a caterer for the wedding.  You thought this one went away didn’t you?  Well, I was all on track, got one approved by my venue and haven’t heard back from him after our initial phone call about my homes and dreams of wedding food.  I’ve chosen to take that as a sign and look elsewhere just need to setup tastings! B: Brent and I are going to a tasting Thursday and Saturday of this week! Never thought it would take THIS LONG to get to that stage of getting a caterer! Holy geez!

4.  Attend 3 to 4 yoga classes a week. You’re probably like whaa?? You yoga all the time!  Well, technically I don’t totally have yoga goals like I did for all of 2011 and I took 2 weeks off when I hit my 200 and let me tell you my body knew it!  So I want to see how I do with 3-4 times a week for a month where this blog holds me accountable! B+: I did this every week with the exception of the last week of April! So pretty darn proud of myself!

5. Update my handwriting/calligraphy website.  It needs a MAJOR change starting with a new theme that allows for a real blog inside the website.  Change is a coming! D: It still looks the same.  Part of this I need my sister’s help on and we thought she’d uploaded a new theme for my website but it didn’t go through.  AND she got to work on self-publishing her first ever book, Creative Chaos, so she got a little tied up which I don’t blame her!

As far as hills went in March I did a hill workout in 3 out of the 4 weeks of March.  And I’m totally behind on my two books a month goal and only got through Mile Makers by Kristin Armstrong in March.

 And now for April’s goals….

Teal:

1. Successfully complete the BluePrint Cleanse.  This will start Monday April 2nd and end Tuesday April 10th.

2. Complete one hill and one speed training per week, in place of regular runs or cardio.

3. I have one paper left for Grad School that is technically not due until the middle of May but I want to finish it and not procrastinate. Also I would like to finish up with all of my hours before the end of the month so I can order, submit, and file everything early to be ready for graduation!

4. Earn my 75th class yoga band.

Beth:

1. Please don’t hate me, but I’m going for lose 5lbs again.  Third time is a charm right?  I plan on doing the Advocare 10 day cleanse again this month and take a two week supply of the Advocare MNS Max 3, so all of that alone should guarantee I lose more than 5lbs we’ll just have to see how I do keeping it off the rest of the month! 🙂

2. Save the Dates – have them printed, addressed (myself) and sent off to wedding guests before this month is over!

3. Stadium workouts once a week.  This week sometime I should be meeting Johnny to do a stadium workout the way he wants me to do them and should that happen I would like to complete them once a week!

4. Prepare food for each week on Sunday nights this month.  I’ll have to do this for at least the 10 day cleanse, but to help me get serious with my food and losing weight this has to be done every week!

So time for us to get busy!  What do you have in store for the month of April? Personal goals you are trying to accomplish, running goals or both?