Quinoa and black bean salad

I recently talked about how I'm trying to lose my remaining baby weight, and then some, to be in better shape. I know I'm definitely not alone in this goal. You'd think that it would be super easy to eat healthy food while you're at home all day with your children. To the contrary, I actually find it harder to find time to eat lunch now than I did when I worked full-time teaching, or in an office. At least then I had a scheduled lunch break where all I had to do was eat. Or run errands. Or in the case of teaching, grade papers. But you know what I mean. Now all my time is wrapped up in making sure my baby is fed, happy, (relatively) clean, and not eating microscopic bits off the carpet, or pulling things down onto his cute little head.

I was inspired by some recent posts about tasty recipes over at Alisa Burke (ok, when I tried to find the post to link to I realized my version of recent is almost 2 months ago!) to try and find something I would be willing to eat for lunch day after day. I love food and I love to cook. I don't like to eat the same thing over and over though (except for breakfast, oddly). When I was at Whole Foods the other day picking up some beautiful tuna steaks (yum!) for a salad I grabbed one of their prepared meals that I thought would be healthy for lunch, their Quinoa and Black Bean Salad. I was starving and it was time to get the baby home for his afternoon nap. I couldn't even contemplate taking the time after all that to make food before I could eat it, and I'm definitely not wasting my daily calories on fast food (not anymore, anyway).

By reading the ingredients off the back of the container I pieced together my own recipe and it is delicious, and filling. Even better, it's pretty good for my diet healthy lifestyle.

Quinoa and Black Bean Salad
serving size: 1 cup, servings per batch: approximately 7
Nutritional information per serving: 244 calories, 31g carbs, 22g fat, 8g protein  

Ingredients:
1 c. Quinoa
1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
2 ears corn (cook and remove kernels from cobs)
1 c. red onions (diced)
2 c. red pepper (diced)
1/4 c. parsley (finely chopped)
3 cloves garlic (finely chopped or grated)
1/4 c. (loosely packed) fresh basil (finely chopped)
1/3 c. red wine vinegar
1/4 c. extra-virgin olive oil
 salt and pepper

Cook the quinoa according to the package directions. When the quinoa is finished cooking transfer it to a large bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this dish as much as my family did. Even our nearly-9-month-old loved it. Seriously, is that weird?