I had to scramble the other night as we weren’t getting our groceries until the next day and we were running low on so many things in our kitchen.
It is something to get used to when you can’t just pop over to the store for a quick bulb of garlic and a gallon of milk. I have always been the scrambled cook, forgetting things on the list I brought with me to the store and frantically calling Eric to pick up the pretty obvious forgotten ingredient on his way home from work. So now, I have to improvise on pretty much every meal and this does not alway work out for me. Thankfully, I had a success story the other night!

I went for a walk in my neighborhood the other day and remembered that I had a jar of quinoa and tried to think of ways to use it for dinner that night. I remember having a dish at a restaurant I loved when I was pregnant with Wyatt, so I wanted try and replicate it. It was quinoa cakes over a bed of spinach with marinara sauce over the top.

I searched my kitchen for things that would remind me of the flavors in that dish and here is what I came up with.

Shredded cheddar cheese
three little baby cloves of shallots
some garlic in the bottom of the olive oil bottle
frozen spinach
salt
pepper
and chili flakes

This is just about all I had to work with.
I used an egg and the last tablespoon of some almond flour pancake mix I had to help bind the patties together. If I had the legit ingredients I would have made them with garlic, some parsley, parmesan and mozzarella cheese, onion, salt pepper and a bit of GF flour for binding.

It never hurts to improvise when you start running out of things in your kitchen. It doesn’t always work out, but nothing goes to waste.

ingredients:

Salt and pepper
1 egg beaten
1 cup cooked quinoa
dash of chili flakes
if you have parsley or an herb to add then great if not you can add chopped frozen spinach about a handful for a little extra veggie in there.
1/4 onion finely chopped (or random shallots you find in a veggie bowl)
½ cup mozzarella cheese (or more if you like it cheesy and honestly any cheese will work)
3 cloves garlic crushed (or whatever you have.. I love garlic so the more the better)
I use gf flour for binding and not very much a tablespoon or two is fine
a little olive oil in the mixture.
2 tablespoons of olive oil for frying the quinoa cakes in the skillet.
Marinara sauce ( or whatever spaghetti sauce you have in your pantry)

preparation:

You want to combine all the ingredients in a bowl, and then make little patties in your hands. I will say that when the patties are thin they fall apart in the pan so it actually works best to make them about an inch thick for frying in the skillet. Pan fry them on medium heat until golden brown and cooked through on both sides.

You can plate them over any veggie you have or just eat them the way they are with sauce over the top. My kids loved them!

Enjoy!

Quinoa Cakes Recipe by Sarah Olsen

ingredients:

preparation: