Moroccan Butternut and Carrot Stew with Quinoa

I made this spiced butternut and carrot stew for the mostly vegetarian EPA girls as a precursor to the recycled t-shirt necklace tutorial, and, judging by the clean plates, it seemed to be a hit (except with Jenny, who found it to be too spicy... sorry, Jenny!). I didn't find it to be particularly hot-spicy (I thought it was more spice-spicy), but it definitely warmed us up on a freezing night.
After looking at the comments on the recipe, I decided to double all the spices except the cayenne, added 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon with the other spices, and used smoked paprika rather than Hungarian sweet paprika. Also, I added another 1/2-3/4 of a cup of water, as it was looking a little dry as it cooked. Finally, I didn't have any mint for the quinoa, so I added some parsley in addition to the cilantro.

I think that next time, maybe a little more quinoa would have been good, as we had no leftover quinoa, but a whole serving of the stew remaining. Also, the stew could probably benefit from some raisins or dried currants, and maybe some sliced almonds.

Fried Rice-Style Fried Quinoa

I had some leftover cooked quinoa from the salad I made last week, so I thought I would try stir-frying it like fried rice... kinda like chicken-fried steak. Not at all like chicken-fried chicken... what the hell is chicken fried chicken? Isn't it just fried chicken??Anywho, I loosely based my fried rice fried quinoa on a bunch recipes I found online, as well as what I could dig up in the fridge, which included carrots and CSA mushrooms, green onions, snow peas and eggs. Somehow, I didn't have any soy sauce in the house (and didn't notice until I had already prepped all the veggies)... a frantic trip to Target to remedy the soy sauce disaster resulted in the purchase of $60 worth of other stuff, but no soy sauce. I think it's physically impossible to leave Target without spending at least $50.

So, instead, I threw some Maggi sauce and some Sriracha into the stir-fry, which gave it a salty, spicy kick. The quinoa acted pretty much exactly like rice, but is much healthier and more protein-rich. Give it a try!

Quinoa Salad with Blueberries, Snap Peas, Feta and Almonds

Inspired by some snap peas from Star Hollow farms, some blueberries from the store and the ginormous bag of quinoa I got at Costco, I decided to make a healthy quinoa salad for lunch. Riffing on these quinoa salad recipes, I added raw blueberries and snap peas, feta, toasted almonds, minced green onions and parsley and a lemony dressing to my salad. Really easy, pretty good and definitely good for you!

Moroccan-style Quinoa with Butternut and Chickpeas

I made a tasty vegetarian quinoa salad with Moroccan spices the other night, very loosely based on on this recipe from Closet Cooking. I liked the idea of his salad, particularly his spice mix, which I made to spec, but I used different ingredients for the salad base, according to what I had on hand.

Here's how my substitutions broke down:

• I used regular quinoa rather than a mix of red and regular
• I substituted butternut squash for the carrots
• I steamed a bunch of spinach towards the end of the quinoa cooking
• I used toasted almonds in place of the pine nuts
• I threw in dried cranberries where raisins were called for

In the end, the spice mix complimented these ingredients very well!

Spicy Quinoa Salad with Chickpeas and Zucchini

Dudes, this salad is good stuff. It's spicy (not hot spicy, but full of delicious spices spicy), healthy, and super easy. Try it. Fo rizzle. MLT says "It's fucking good."

Changes I made to the recipe:

1. I didn't have the requisite cumin seeds, so I just used 1/2 tsp ground cumin at the beginning instead.

2. I may have added more parsley than required, too, just because.

3. Finally, I was lazy, so I didn't fire up the grill for the zucchini... I just put it under the broiler.