Keen on quinoa

My titles are just oh-so-clever, aren’t they?

In my previous post, I professed my love for Terry Walters and her brilliant cookbook, Clean Food.

Well, as you can see, I just can’t get enough of her recipes.  And since quinoa is one of my favorite foods ever (and thanks to Costco we just bought enough to feed all of the Middle East), it was an obvious choice for dinner.  In true Elise fashion, I made several adjustments to the recipe.  Does anyone ever follow them verbatim?

Based on what we had on hand, our personal taste preferences, and what we could find at the store…here’s how MY version of Sprouted Cooked Quinoa with Strawberries and Lime turned out.

Tomatillos are such weird little buggers!  They look like green tomatoes, but taste nothing like a tomato.  Kyle had never had one before this meal.  Have you ever tried them?  They are a bit tart, but a bit sweet, too.  Like I said, weird little buggers!  Just peel away the outside part, wash, chop, and eat (but don’t eat any other part of the tomatillo plant because it’s toxic)!

While he chopped up all the above ingredients, I started the quinoa and then got crackin’ on the kale/shallot side dish.  But back to the quinoa dish…

The actual recipe calls for sprouted quinoa, but there were a few reasons I cooked the grain instead.  First of all, my dining company included quinoa newbies.  Don’t get me wrong, Kyle’s mom is completely open-minded and veg-curious, but I feel it is my duty as a vegan foodie to showcase foods in their best light, and starting off with a sprouted version of a foreign grain seems a bit unfair.  Second, I love cooked quinoa (seems like a good enough reason to me).  Third, sprouting takes time that we didn’t have.  Had I planned ahead and started soaking the quinoa earlier, we may have been able to pull it off, but that just wasn’t the case.  So there you have it, cooked quinoa it is!

I just love me some quinoa.

You didn’t forget about the side dish, right?

Once everything was chopped, it was time to make the dressing.  I’m not going to post the exact amounts of ingredients (buy the book!), but since we made quite a few changes I put our alterations in italics:

• EVOO
• orange, juiced and zested (we subbed ~1/4 cup regular OJ, no zest)
• lime juice (we used 1/2 a lime plus it’s zest in lieu of the orange zest)
• cilantro
• mint (omitted because I hate mint)
• finely chopped jalapeno (Kyle’s was a bit of a coarse chop, but it’s cool, I didn’t need my sinuses anyways)
• sea salt

We mixed all the chopped fruits/veggies in with the (then) cooled quinoa.  Can you see all the good stuff goin’ on in thurrr?

• avocado
• apricots, diced (we used fresh not dried)
• jicima, peeled and diced (we used water chestnuts)
• tomatillos, husked and diced
• quartered strawberries
• yellow bell pepper (we used ~5-7 baby bell peppers, multicolored)
• watermelon radish, peeled and diced (omitted because I don’t like radish)

*our changes in italics

Poured in the dressing.

Stirred it and tossed it all together.  I love how the avocado acts as an adhesive binding everything together.

De-freakin-licious.

I served it up alongside the kale/shallot side dish and had second helpings of each.  It was a big hit, in both my opinion and that of the non-vegans.

And the best part about making big ‘ol batches of these dishes…the leftovers!

I had it the next day for lunch on a HUGE (leftover packed) salad.

And the next night alongside some steamed broccoli, a new product (to be reviewed in detail later), and (unpictured) grilled corn.

In true Ah-nold fashion, I’ll be back…

(with the leftover deets that is)  🙂