Lastly I made quinoa mac and cheese cakes!

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Fabio decided to whip up his own side dish! I believe his words were something like, “I want to make the blog too!” Ok Fabs, thanks for your help. Your salad was delicious! He sliced up some tomatoes, basil and mozzarella cheese and piled them into a nice small salad to accompany our meal. He topped with salt and pepper. It really was delicious.

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YUM!! These were so delicious you wouldn’t believe that they are good for you. Last week I made some Quinoa Mac and Cheese adapted from Around the Table. I will definitely have to repeat this recipe and share it with you guys! It involves the incredibly healthy grain quinoa (pronounced KEEN-WAH) and other decadent comfort food ingredients like cheddar cheese and garlic. It was so good and luckily made enough for leftovers. Yay! I decided instead of reheating the mac and cheese in the microwave, I wanted to do something a little different with it. This how I invented the Quinoa Mac and Cheese Cakes!

First I started out with my leftover quinoa mac and cheese. I stirred it all up so it was combined evenly.

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Meanwhile, I heated a hot griddle pan on the stovetop. I sprayed the pan with my Misto olive oil sprayer. If you don’t have one of these I highly recommend investing in one. They only cost a couple dollars and allow you to control how much oil you put on your food. I bought mine at TJ Maxx .

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They didn’t stick together as well as I would have liked so next time I may add an egg into the mixture. However, they did crisp up nicely and retained all of their cheesy delicious flavor from the first time we ate them. These cakes were awesome and I will definitely make them again!

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Questions
The link I provided above explaining the health benefits of quinoa is dataset from WedMD. Personally I love getting my health information from that site. They have so many helpful resources. What cool things have you learned from WedMD? Have any good quinoa recipes? I’d love to try som

Luckily, our tour bus did take us to a few cool sights where we were able to get out and walk around, which we might have otherwise missed. First, we stopped at “El Parque de los Pies Descalzos” or Barefoot Park, a zen-inspired public park where you are encouraged to take off your shoes and feel the energy of the planet.

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While the material on the ground looks like sand, it’s actually small pebbles that sort of massage your feet as you walk around. I loved the idea of reconnecting with the energy of the planet, and thought this little park was a lot of fun. Apparently on weekends it gets really full with families and groups who want to enjoy the park, and they even read poetry in the bamboo garden in the background, which is nicknamed “lover’s garden.”