Balsamic Tempeh & Quinoa

More Food Porn - really, this is just my way of gloating about something delicious I made so I can figure out the recipe later. Is that obvious?

Tonight was a discussion at the Dharma Center and we include some potluck food to share for our dinner. I've been trying to make something fairly hearty so we don't end up feeling hungry during meditation afterward. Plus if no one else remembers to bring anything vegan Christie and I have something for us.

She made chocolate chip cookies earlier today. I was in charge of "dinner".

First was to chop up all the cucumbers in the fridge and add in some vinegar. This was really was to get them out of the fridge to make way for the 1 "boothy blonde", 1 suyo, and 7 lemon cucumbers that Chrsitie picked yesterday!

For the real meal I thought of using the last of the leftover red qunioa. In the afternoon I grilled up all the summer squash from the garden on the cast iron, let it cool and diced it up. In went thinly chopped up Italian parsley and the last of the slightly limp looking basil.

I sauteed half a sweet onion and diced tempeh, added a little red bell pepper, and when that was all fried up nicely I roughly chopped up a large, over-ripe, heirloom tomato the neighbor had brought over yesterday. This immediately turned into a thin sauce coating the temepeh. All of this went right into the qunioa, squash and herbs.

For a dressing some balsamic and white wine vinegars whisked up with raw tahini, rice milk, and a little whole-grain mustard.

Pumpkin Quinoa

File under, "I love quinoa!"

This is so simple I hate to call it a recipe, but so yummy I wanted to share it! It really came out of some of the leftover stuffed pumpkin from Thanksgiving and my need for a quick-to-make lunch to take with me to yoga teacher training.

1 cup qunioa
2 cups broth
1/2 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 cup cooked, diced pumpkin (or other winter squash)

Bring broth to boil and add quinoa and lemon pepper. Reduce heat and simmer until liquid is mostly absorbed, about 20 minutes. Add pumpkin, mix well into quinoa and continue to simmer until any remaining liquid is absorbed.

Serve immediately as a hot, nutritious side dish or chill then mix with chopped veggies, legumes and dressing for a protein-rich salad.