Leftovers Masterpiece, Chapter 1: What Can I Do With This Chicken?

My reinstitution of menu planning with my new and improved menu chart has been going great this week!  On fish night, my picky eater ate fish!  Maybe it was because she knew it was coming, maybe she wanted to eat what was on the pretty menu.  Whatever the reason, I am not complaining.  Last night's meal was baked ziti, but there was one problem: I can't eat ziti or cheese, so I had to make a separate meal for myself.  I could have made a gluten-free, dairy-free baked ziti, but that's not appetizing to me, and since I'm the cook in the house, I can go off menu.  I had chicken left over from chicken night, and I had my weekly container of quinoa in the fridge (a staple for this gluten-free mama), so I decided to experiment with my leftovers and I hit the jackpot!  This took all of seven minutes to make because the chicken and the quinoa were already cooked.  If you want to try this recipe and you don't have cooked chicken and quinoa on hand, no worries:  Quinoa cooks up in 15 minutes, and you can use the meat from a rotisserie chicken if you are in a bind.  Without further ado, my leftovers masterpiece!

Lemon Quinoa with Chicken and Spinach: 

Serves 2 as a main dish (double for the whole family, triple if you have lots of kids or company coming)

2 cooked chicken breasts

1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa

1/2 lemon

2 cups spinach

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Place the quinoa in a bowl.  Grate the rind of 1/2 of the lemon into the bowl and squeeze the juice over the quinoa from 1/4 of the lemon.  Take your leftover chicken and cube it into bite-sized pieces.  Add it to the bowl and set aside.  Heat a medium saucepan on medium heat.  Add 1/2 teaspoon of oil and swirl to coat.  Add the spinach to the pan and mix until wilted.  When the spinach is almost done, grate a clove of garlic into the pan and cook for an additional 30-45 seconds.  When the spinach is done, add it to the quinoa and chicken and mix well.  Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of oil,  and salt and pepper to taste.  Add the mixture back to the pan and heat through, for about 2 minutes.  

And that's it!  You can eat it alone or serve alongside your favorite vegetable.  I paired mine with fresh tomatoes from my garden with a dash of salt.  This was an absolutely delicious dinner (a masterpiece if I do say so myself) and I can't wait to eat the leftovers cold for lunch.  Try it out, let me know if you like it as much as I do.

For more photos of this recipe tutorial, go to http://goodnessgraciousliving.com/blog/leftover-masterpiece-chicken/