Speedy Quinoa with roasted cod, fresh tomatoes and capers

When I work long hours and I come home around 8pm, the last thing I want is spending ages cooking dinner so I always try and find the quickest way to prepare a meal that will be both delicious and nutritious.. This recipe was a happy discovery one night when I didn't have much left in the house except for some leftover cooked quinoa (I like to cook a batch of it on Sundays and just add different ingredients during the week for a "take away" lunch), two medium tomatoes, garlic and some capers. Plus, I remembered I had one piece of frozen cod left in the freezer (ideally you want to defreeze it beforehand but I was desperate). 

Here's how I did it: with my coat still on I turned the oven on at 180C . Placed the cod in the tray with a squeeze of lemon, some olive oil, paprika and herbs (but you can use anything you've got, only herbs, only paprika, only lemon...), and put it in the oven with my timer on for 20 minutes.

Quickly undressed and put PJ's on (yes, I know, I'm a sexy beast...) then, with 10 min left on the timer I washed and sliced the tomatoes and popped them with a couple of chopped garlic cloves and a little oil in a pan. Medium heat and just stir them once, add some salt, pepper and about two minutes before the end, add your capers.

Now, cod was ready, fresh tomatoes cooked, all you need to do is assemble! I added the quinoa and cod directly to the pan with the tomatoes and mixed everything on low heat for 1 minute, maybe less because I was really hungry.... DONE.

It was a comforting meal, full of flavour and packed not only with proteins from both quinoa and cod, but also the phytochemical lycopene from the tomatoes (great for cardiovascular health and also skin). Finally, and you have read this before on my blog as I use it a lot, Garlic! Natural antibiotic, contains sulphur and is therefore really helpful for your liver!

All of this goodness in 20 minutes. That's right.

Now you go and do it.x