I came across this recipe from Kathryne Taylor on her blog. I pretty much made it the way she said.
I chopped up some onion, carrot, celery, a few garlic cloves, but just the one chilli pepper (birdseye, so hotter than a jalapeño). This mirepoix went into hot oil in the pot. I did add one teaspoon of salt at this stage, because I feel it helps with the flavour overall.
Once these had sautéed for a few minutes, I added 500ml of water and one 400g can of chopped tomato. I was just cooking for 2, so I didn’t go with 3.5 cups of water and the larger can of tomato. If you were catering for more, then definitely up these quantities. I also added in the 400g can of black beans and the half-cup of quinoa - both of which I had rinsed in cold water - along with a second teaspoon of salt and a heaped teaspoon of cumin powder. I added a load of freshly ground black pepper.
I let this come to the boil, and then let it simmer for about 15 minutes until the quinoa was cooked. I did add a little more salt and pepper at this stage.
As recommended in the recipe, I took out a couple of ladles into a large cup and blended with my immersion blender to add back as thickener.
I served this in bowls along with some plain toritilla chips. Some crusty bread would also have been awesome. There was plenty for two of us, and some leftovers for tomorrow.
You could extend this for more people by adding potato chunks in the stew. Alternatively, you could serve it with rice.