Cheezy Semi-Mexican Quinoa Cassorole

I got this recipe idea from a lady that you all have head about if you read my blog. Lindsay at The Lean Green Bean.

I rarely follow a recipe full force, 100%. I usually just take in a recipe and do 3/4 of what the person who originally made it did, then the other 1/4 I play with. You can find Lindsay's original recipe for this casserole here. 

My recipe is basically hers just I didn't add in the corn, extra green bell pepper, some of the spices, or well, the dairy! Reason being.. I didn't have all the spices on hand like I thought I did, I didn't want to use a whole other pepper since I'm on a budget and I need that pepper for other things, and I don't like corn. Why? Because of all the crap you hear about corn being genetically modified. You can read about that here if you were not aware of that. That's a newer study that just came out a few weeks ago. I've known for years about it, though. Ever since finding that out I've extremely limited my consumption of any corn products. I do eat corn tortilla chips on occasion, but other than that.. nothing with the word "corn" goes into this body.

Ingredients.

• 1/2c onion, diced.
• 1 red bell pepper.
• 2c black beans, cooked.
• 1 clove of garlic, minced.
• 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
• 1/4 teaspoon of paprika.
• 1/4 teaspoon of parsley.
• 2c quinoa, cooked.
• 3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast seasoning. (I used Bragg)
• 1c unsweetened original almond milk. (I used Silk)
• 1 tablespoon of earth balance* soy free vegan margarine.
• 1 tablespoon of flour.
• Toppings: diced tomato, avocado.

Directions.

1.  Cook quinoa, as package instructs. Preheat oven to 400.
2. While quinoa is cooking, saute onion, red bell pepper, garlic and spices in a pan, until softened.
3. After quinoa is done cooking, remove from heat, then add in the black beans and quinoa, mix well.
4. Transfer mixture into a bowl, set aside.
5. In the same pan, melt the vegan margarine then add in the flour.
6. Slowly add the almond milk and stir to remove lumps.
7. Add in the nutritional yeast, stir well.
8. Add in the quinoa mixture and stir until evenly mixed.
9. Transfer mixture to a sprayed or greased casserole dish and bake for 20 minutes.
10. Top with tomato and avocado!