Mediterranean Chicken, Broccoli and Quinoa with Spinach Pesto

For the pesto:
1. In a food processor, add a 1/3 of the spinach, garlic, lemon juice, Parmesan cheese, walnuts, and olive oil.
2. Turn the food processor on and process it until the spinach is finely chopped.
3. Keep adding the rest of the bag of spinach until it is all finely chopped (you may have to stir it around and scrape the sides of the bowl a couple times, to make sure all of the leaves are chopped finely).
4. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Set aside.

Note: You can adjust the amount of any of the ingredients in the pesto to your preferred taste. This is a general recipe that I like.

For the chicken and quinoa:
1. Normally, you would wash the quinoa, but this is optional for what I did. You can if you want.
2. In a medium-sized saucepan, combine the water and quinoa and bring to a boil.
3. Turn heat down to a simmer. Simmer it for about 15 minutes, or until most of the water is gone (similarl to cooking rice).
4. While quinoa is cooking, cube the chicken breasts (you don’t need the chicken if you want to go vegetarian).
5. Put olive oil in a large nonstick skillet and heat on medium.
6. Once heated, place the chicken breast cubes in and season with the Italian seasoning. You may want to do half of the seasoning, and then wait until you start flipping the chicken to the other side to add the rest of the seasoning.
7. Cook the chicken until no longer pink. This can take anywhere from 8-10 minutes or more, just keep an eye on it.
8. While cooking the chicken and quinoa, follow the instructions on the package of frozen broccoli to cook either via microwave or via stove top (I prefer the microwave since I’m already using 2 burners).
9. When quinoa, broccoli, and chicken are done cooking, get a large bowl and put them all in there and mix.
10. Take about 1 cup of the pesto that you set aside earlier and mix it thoroughly into the chicken mixture. You can put more in if you’d like, but that’s up to you. If you have leftover pesto, you can freeze it or use it in a couple days so it doesn’t go bad.
11. Serve and enjoy! It’s green and beautiful!

Note: If it isn’t salty enough for you, go ahead and add more salt to your own individual serving. I like things less salty, and some people like more.