Non-fried vegetable quinoa with 5-spice pork

I spent a few hours last week going through my back issues of Oxygen and labelling recipes of interest with little sticky flags. (Both of my cats like to chew on these while I’m trying to go through a book or magazine. I have no idea why.) Anyway, this recipe was one of the ones I flagged (from June 2011, in case you were wondering). I added the pork tenderloin, mostly because I got a package of what I thought was chicken out of the freezer last week and it turned out to be pork. May I recommend that you not wander off and get sucked in to tvtropes.org while the quinoa is cooking? The pot has been soaking for two days and I still haven’t got it clean.

Ingredients:

3 tbsp quinoa

1/4 yellow onion, chopped

1 carrot, diced

1 stalk celery, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, finely diced

1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced

1 tsp tamari or low-sodium soy sauce

2 egg whites, beaten

1 whole egg, beaten

1 cup broccoli, chopped

1/2 cup water

1 pork tenderloin, about 4 oz or so

1 tsp Chinese 5-spice powder

Preparation:

1. Cook quinoa according to package instructions (should equal about 1/2 cup cooked).

2. Meanwhile, heat 2 tablespoons of water in a medium skillet. Steam-saute onions and carrots for about 5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients (except broccoli). Cover with a lid and heat for 3 minutes.

3. Add cooked quinoa and broccoli to skillet; add more water to steam. Cover with a lid and steam about 3 minutes until the broccoli is bright green.

4. In the meantime, using the back side of a spoon, rub both sides of the pork tenderloin with 5-spice powder. Fry using non-stick cooking spray about 3-4 minutes per side or until cooked through. Serve with vegified quinoa. (I chopped it up and put them in the same bowl but you might want to be classy and use a plate.)