Made Up Mahi Mahi & Quinoa

So…I was putting some new groceries in the freezer when I discovered we still had some Mahi Mahi in there we hadn’t used. And this dinner was borne of that discovery…

It is basically made up of stuff we had around the house that seemed like it would make a decent dinner.  I had no idea what I was doing, so I was very pleased with the way it turned out.

I have never cooked quinoa before, nor even eaten it.  But I picked up a bag at Trader Joe’s the other day because I’d heard so much good stuff about it. I mean, it was all the rage in 2013, so why not finally give it a try in 2014, right? And I’m trying to eat healthier, and quinoa (which I’ve mispronounced in my head for the last year–thankfully, never out loud) is apparently some sort of super food that we’ve been aware of since at least 1955 but has only recently become vogue. Google it.

I figured I needed some sort of marinade for the fish, so that was first up. I pondered what to do with it while it thawed.  I checked Pinterest and Google, of course, but ultimately, did sort of my own thing–although I was partially inspired by this lime marinade. Here’s what I came up with:

Made-up Mahi Marinade

Then, I needed a side. I couldn’t decide what to do here. We had some broccoli, and I was thinking about it, but it didn’t seem right, so I threw open the cupboards thinking “orzo!” when I realized we had none….but there was that magic quinoa. I was a little afraid of it, to be honest.  But I resolved to make it.  I didn’t just want to dump some plain SEED on the plate. We had some cherry tomatoes I had picked up from TJ’s with another recipe in mind, and, thus, I decided upon this:

Quinoa with tomatoes and basil vinaigrette

The end result: thumbs up from both me and the husband.  Now, that I have it all recorded, we’ll definitely do this again.