Lemon Quinoa with Butternut Squash

So for dinner tonight, I made this quinoa dish. Apparently it's quinoa mania around my apartment! So a few things about this recipe

I bought the squash prechopped from Trader Joe's. I think I let them sit for too long, too.
Also, the step where you add lemon juice and lemon peel - I screwed that up badly. First my peel was big chunks of peel - not very appetizing looking when it came all done. Also, I forgot to add the juice and peel while the quinoa still had liquid; thus, I added it after the quinoa was all cooked. It ended up making the dish kind of mushy. I think I should have toasted the quinoa more, as well.

Also, I only had a few pine nuts and my chives were kinda gross. So basically, my products were lacking. Oh well.

In the end, it was sufficient. I'm not sure the depth of flavor as really there, though. I added a lot of shallots and garlic, too, so I'm shocked that was kind of flat.

Here's something else too consider, there wasn't a lot of texture to this dish. It lacked something crispy even if it had been less mushy.

So on the whole, I give this recipe a meh.

Pineapple Quinoa Cashew Stir Fry

Hello readers!

I got busy and well now, I'm not so vegan. BUT on the upside, I still cook lots of vegan things. So, I think I'm going to keep blogging my recipes.

Anyway, on to my next review. One of my favorite recipes is this quinoa stirfry out of Veganomicon. Here is my modified ingredient list for my version of this
1 cup of quinoa (cooked according to the box with in pineapple juice, water, fresh mint, + a soy sauce packet from an asian restaurant)
1 cup of whole raw cashews
3 tbsp of peanut oil
1 cup of scallions, sliced thin
4 garlic cloves minced
2 serrano pepper, sliced in small rounds
generous piece of ginger, finely chopped
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, sliced thin
2 tbsp fresh mint chopped
10 oz pineapple chunks
4 tbspn soy sauce
3 tbspn vegetable broth
lime wedges

1. In a wok on medium, add peanut oil, scallions + garlic. wait for it to sizzle
2. Add serrano pepper and ginger for 2 minutes
3. Add bell peppers, 3 minutes
4. add basil & mint, 1 minute
5. add quinoa + pineapples
6. mix in a cup - soy sauce + veg broth. then add to stir fry. 10 minutes

make sure you serve the lime over the quinoa - the acid is really important

couple of possible variations -
1. replace a tbsp of soy sauce with mirin - that's in the original recipe but I just didn't have any
2. add chicken - marinate it in pineapple juice, lime juice, soy sauce, and something with a kick - maybe a little cayenne.

modify other ingredients as you wish. I look to add lots of colors to make it more playful. The original recipe called for peas or edamame, but I think anything green would be delicious. Sugar snap peas in particular - yum!

leave comments of what vegetables you add in!

Orange Quinoa salad

"Mix cooked couscous or quinoa with orange zest and juice, olive oil, maybe honey, sliced oranges, raisins or dried cranberries, chopped red onion and chopped almonds. Serve over greens, or not."

This salad was not very exciting. I made it with quinoa, cranberries and no honey with friends; the large quantities of left overs may have turned me off in the end. It definitely got better with age.

I'm curious what it would be like with different oranges.

It's also from the New York Times article.