Spiced Quinoa with Red Peppers in a Curried Apple Dressing

Had I SO much parsley left from the falafels I had made a few posts ago and really, really needed to use it up. I also had my favorite dinner guest over, and wanted to create a warm meal for the Mrs. when she came on over to my humble home for eats and beats (MUSIC! Not smack-downs..fyi.)

The Curried Apple Dressing is REALLY good too. I wanted the quinoa to have a nice dressing, and wanted an excuse to use the glass bottle I bought months ago in the summer.

Quinoa, like couscous is a grain and very easy to cook.

What You'll Need: (easily serves four)
3 cloves garlic
1 cup Qunioa
1 Red Pepper RAW
Curry, Thyme, Cayenne Pepper, Turmeric- to taste

1/2-1 cup corn

1 medium onion
1 cup parsley

Get a start cooking the quinoa and garlic together in pot.

How to Cook Quinoa:
I feel very safe telling you that unless you BURN it, quinoa is FOOL proof to make. But it is IMPERATIVE TO RINSE YOUR QUINOA BEFORE YOU COOK IT! SOAK it in some water and strain it a few times while you're getting the kitchen started for this feast. I cook my quinoa by bringing together my water (1 cup for every cup of quinoa) with my spices and garlic. Bring this to a boil-reduce heat, add veggies and cook covered for 10 minutes.

In a food processor combine parsley and 1 medium onion, add to the qunioa-combine your spices&corn and simmer simmer.

Curried Apple Dressing

What You'll Need:
1 sauteed onion until translucent
1/2 cup apple juice
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp water
Curry-to taste (I'm NOT SHY w/my curry!)
1/2-1 tbsp cilantro
pinch of black pepper

Throw it all together in a food processor and BAM you're good to go! Drizzle a little bit on the quinoa once it's cook to moisten, serve the rest for your guests to put on themselves.

I made this dressing up as I went along and was really, really pleased with it. VERY refreshing-makes about 1 cup. Easily serves two (it was gone after dinner guest and I had dinned, while there was plenty of quinoa leftover)

Everything Zen Salad with "Honey" Mustard Dressing.

There are some nights when we come home from work or school and our daily demands are not yet done. I whipped this sucker up in no time flat, on a Tuesday night when I had hardly enough time to get dressed and head out the door before my 7:30pm yoga class-and my tummy was demanding to be fed THAT MOMENT.

This salad is quick and easy to prepare, it is by no means "gourmet" for you food snots out there-but dang it tastes GOOD. You can use whatever dressing you can think of, but I was in a hurry and flipping through my cookbooks when I stumbled upon Dreena Burton's (eat,drink & be vegan pg 81)recipe for "Honey" Mustard Dressing. I'll include the recipe for that in this post, as I had never tried to before until this salad and must report that it is very tasty-and I made a few of my own alterations, so my posted version will be that of my change.

Everything Zen Salad

What You'll Need:
1 veggie pattie (I used PC Blue Menue Bean&Lentil pattie. Yummy and full of protein!)

3-4 roman lettuce leaves
Zen Veggies: onions, red peppers, yellow peppers, carrots. (Look for this mixture in the frozen foods section of your grocery store!)

Handful of mushrooms

Prepare your Zen Veggies! For me, this meant that I stuck them in the microwave for three minutes while I let my veggie pattie cook. Prepare your veggie pattie. I fried mine up in a teaspoon of Earth Balance until it was cooked. Do I need to tell you to wash your lettuce and make sure your mushrooms aren't covered in cack? Add Zen mixture to lettuce, crumble veggie pattie and top with mushrooms.

" Honey" Mustard Dressing

What You'll Need:

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

4 tbsp Agave Nectar

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

dash of sea salt

1 clove of garlic
4 tbsp light olive oil

Stick all of the ingredients starting first with the garlic clove and minus the olive oil in your food processor (or in my case, my Magic Bullet! LOVE that thing) Blend, and then add in your oil, blend some more.