Today Owen got to hold a frog for the first time thanks to his Zia. Our backyard is filled with tiny frogs but since Mama is too scared to touch them he hadn't really gotten the chance to look at them up close. It was quite the feat to get the frog to sit on his hand and to actually get a decent picture but totally worth it!

We also got to play with some ducks today. After our usual visit to Mothersong on Thursday mornings we headed over to San Lorenzo Park for lunch and some play time with other babies. Here's a short video of Owen chasing some ducks around the park.

So now that Owen is older I'm finding more time to cook again and since having a baby I'm also finding it that much more important to cook healthy meals that the whole family can share together. Yesterday I made a red quinoa and kidney bean salad to go along with our veggie burgers and I'm still pretty new to making dished with quinoa and basically made the recipe up as I went along so I truly didn't expect it to turn out too good but I was so impressed by it that I just had to blog about it. I'm thinking that I'll try to make it a regular thing to blog about new recipes I try out. Excuse the poor photograph of the salad, I really looks much better in person and tastes a million times better! Lemme know if you try it out and how you liked it.

Red Quinoa and Kidney Bean Salad

Ingredients:

1 1/2 red quinoa

2 cups red kidney beans

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

3 tablespoons celery, chopped

1/2 a lemon, juiced

1/2 cup olive oil

2 teaspoons fresh parsley, chopped

2 teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons salt

Preparation:

Wash quinoa (to wash quinoa I usually let it soak about 15 minutes then drain it through a colander) then cook according to box direction or preferred method. Combine red kidney beans, balsamic vinegar and salt. Once quinoa is cooked, remove from pan and let cool. Add beans, celery, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil, and cumin. Serves about 8. Although I was so hungry I didn't wait for the quinoa to cool and simply mixed all the ingredients right away and it tasted great warm and then today for lunch I had it cold and was great that way too! Enjoy!