Lazy Vegetarian Recipe #2: Tomatoes & "Beef"

I came up with this recipe in an attempt to imitate one of my favorite dishes from a local restaurant. It's turned out to be a regular fixture in my weekly meal plans. (I've even made a magnet for it in my meal planning magnet set!) This yummy recipe is both vegetarian and vegan (egg and dairy free), and it's a snap to make! It includes two unique ingredients which may be new to you: Quinoa (an ancient, high-protein grain), and "Beef-Less Strips". For more info. about quinoa, please see the note after the recipe.
Vegetarian "Beef" & Tomatoes--Serves 4 (With Some Rice Left Over)

Ingredients:

• A splash or two of olive oil
  
• 2 yellow onions, chopped
• 1 cup white rice, uncooked
• 1 cup quinoa, uncooked
• 1 package "Beef-less Strips" from Trader Joe's
• 2-3 Roma tomatoes, diced (can omit if out of season and just use more tomato sauce)
• 1/2 to 1 jar prepared tomato sauce
• 1-2 splashes of ketchup
  
• Salt/pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Place 1 cup quinoa in a large pot. Rinse the quinoa once and drain to the best of your ability. (Quinoa grains are teeny-tiny, so...good luck!)
2. To the same large pot, add 1 cup of white rice and 4 cups of water.
3. Place pot on the stove on high until the water boils rapidly. Once water boils, stir once, cover with a lid, turn heat to low, and set timer for 15 minutes. While rice/quinoa mix is cooking, start on next steps:
4. Splash a little olive oil in a large frying pan. Cook the onions in the oil over medium heat until they are soft and transparent (around 5 minutes).
5. Add the vegetarian "beef" strips to the onions. Use the side of a wooden spoon to break the "beef" strips in half, as they're quite long straight out of the package. Stir and cook for a few minutes until "beef" starts to brown a bit.
6. Add the diced tomatoes. Stir until softened.
7. Add the tomato sauce (anywhere between 1/2 jar and 1 jar, depending on how "saucy" you want your dish to be). Add a splash or two of ketchup (just for a little zing) and salt and pepper to taste.
8. When the grains finish cooking, serve "beef" and tomatoes over the rice/quinoa mixture. Enjoy!

A Note About Quinoa:
Quinoa (pronounced “keen wah”--also spelled “quinua”) is an ancient, high-protein grain that you can buy at specialty stores like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods. One of the great things about quinoa is that the cooking instructions are identical to those for white rice (quinoa cooks in 15 minutes, and the grain to water ratio is 1:2), so you can easily pump up the protein in recipes just by adding quinoa in place of some of the white rice. (Quinoa tastes a little bitter, which is why I chose to mix it with rice in this recipe.) When quinoa is cooked, you will see little white “squiggles” in your food that look like teeny tiny worms. Don’t worry; they are not worms! I repeat: not worms! If you can’t find quinoa at your local grocery store, you can omit it from this recipe and just use twice as much rice.

This Recipe Has Been Posted at: A Soft Place to Land