Late night hunger, conquered by quinoa

I've had a small bag of quinoa sitting in my pantry for a few months now, and being hungry and not having grocery shopped since coming back from Disney, I decided late last night was the time to use some of it up. 

People have really differing opinions on how to cook quinoa. Mine's from the raw food bins at Whole Foods, so I rinse mine really well before using it. And since I'm usually not making much more than 1 cup at a time, I usually cook it stove-top with about 1.5 to 1 water to grain ratio. 

I seasoned this with some red chili flakes, season salt and paprika, brought it all to a boil and let it cook on med-high with a lid for 10-15 minutes until all the water is absorbed. I stir mine frequently throughout, to make sure the seasoning is evenly distributed and to check on the kernels to see if they've popped yet. 

I also sliced some string cheese into the quinoa and threw in a handful of cashews. YUM. The salty mozzarella brought out the seasonings, and the cashews complimented the nuttiness of the grains. I plan to make a larger batch of this tomorrow with some spinach and bake it so I can take it for breakfast next week!  

Red Quinoa dish:

1 c quinoa

1.5 c water or broth (or half/half - I used about 1/2 c homemade stock)

season to taste with paprika, season salt, chili flakes or other herbs of your choosing

1-2 string cheeses sliced, or about 1/3 c shredded cheese of your choosing

1/4 c toasted cashews (you could probably use any nut you had on hand for this)

Bring grains, water and spices to a boil. Cover and continue gently boiling 10-15 mins until all water has been soaked up, stirring occasionally. Layer cheese, quinoa, cheese, quinoa to help the cheese melt, then stir in nuts. 

Optional: mix in 3/4 c chopped dry spinach, and bake at 325 up to 10 mins.

Three excellent new discoveries

So, I haven't used any of those other ingredients yet, but I tried some new things this week. 

First, shrimp was super cheap at the H-Mart, but I bought too much, and needed to use up the ones left over from the bok-choy dish. Easy: quick boiled these in some salted water and mixed up a quick sauce. 

Equal parts low-fat mayo, sriracha sauce, and horseradish (not the super strong prepared stuff in little jars, I used a sandwich spread). Delicious. No need to keep ketchup in the house for this one! 

Next, I finally learned how to fry tofu without having it all fall to pieces. I used the wok instead of a frying pan, which helped.

Slice firm tofu into 1 inch pieces, dredge in flour or pancake mix (I used some Korean pancake mix I had purchased a while back for making pajun - spring onion pancakes). Fry in small batches in about 1-2 inches oil over medium high heat.
Remove with a slotted spoon, salt if desired while still hot, drain on a paper towel.
These ones went into an amazing red curry (more on that later)

Finally, I took a trip to the Trader Joes near my office, and was able to pick up two things: frozen artichokes (which I can NEVER find anywhere else) and potato gnocchi.

Having never made gnocchi before this is what I came up with:
Boil 1 package gnocchi in salted water, then drain. Keep warm.
Saute 2-3 cloves garlic in olive oil, then add 3/4 package frozen artichokes. When artichokes have softened, add 1 large can of diced tomatoes (drained), 1 c chicken broth (or 1/2 broth, 1/2 white wine), and 2 large handfuls of baby spinach.
Stir in 2-4 TBS cream (optional) and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and shredded basil.

Leftovers

Jake very wisely suggested we consume some of the leftovers from the fridge tonight for dinner.

We found some leftover pasta with the tomato basil sauce, but not quite enough sauce to cover the pasta. I also *hate* reheating pasta already mixed with sauce in the microwave, so I tossed it into a frying pan with another jar of tomatoes, a generous splash of white wine (although I usually prefer reds for pasta sauce), and seasoned with garlic, the last of the basil from my editor, and salt and pepper. Very delicious.... did not taste AT ALL like leftovers, hooray!

Pizza

OK, I'm a sucker for pizza. I would eat pizza probably once a week if I could. It's just so damn good.

So, last night, I thought it would be kind of fun to make pizza. I had a half can of tomato sauce that wasn't really doing much in the fridge, so I figured I'd give it a try. I wanted to make homemade dough, but I get home so late, I didn't really have time to let the dough proof if we wanted to eat at a reasonable hour.

Lesson of the night: never ever buy Pillsbury pizza dough. Or, I guess, maybe try pre-cooking it midway, and then putting the toppings on?

The middle of the pizza (weighed down by the sauce, cheese and pepperoni) never really rose much, and in fact didn't quite finish cooking in the middle. (most of the "slices" went back into the over for a few more minutes of damage control cooking). It may have *something* to do with my ghetto-tastic cookie sheet, but... who knows. Someday, I'll have a pizza stone!

There probably would have been pictures... but honestly, I was too mortified by the results.

Dreaming? Of a pizza stone, and enough time to make dough from scratch.

Next up? Polish kielbasa were buy one get one. I'm pairing it with a corn-and-jalapeno relish and some crusty bread.