Red Vegetable Quinoa

This simple little dish turned out fantastic with very little effort and fanfare, largely thanks to excellent spices from Havat Derech HaTavlinim in Bet Lechem HaGlilit, my favorite spice shop, but you can obtain these at Middle Eastern markets and online. The combination of these red and purple spices with a lot of red vegetables yields something very special with a sweet flavor profile. An ideal Instant Pot recipe but this is easy to make in a lidded saucepan – it’ll just take a few more minutes.

  • 1/2 white onion, minced
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 1 tablespoon baharat
  • 1/2 tablespoon sumac
  • 3 big carrots, grated
  • 1 little tomato, finely chopped
  • 1 little beet, finely chopped (I used a precooked beet from lovebeets)
  • 1 cup quinoa (I used tricolor, but would’ve used white quinoa if I had any)
  • 1 cup water

Set the InstantPot to “sauté,” heat it up, and then pop in the onion and garlic. Cook for about five minutes or until beginning to be golden. Then, add the spices, carrots, tomato, and beets. Continue cooking for about five more minutes. Turn off the sauté function and add the quinoa and the water. Mix well, close the lid, and set the Instant Pot to pressure cook on high temperature for 11 minutes. When it is done, let it sit for about five minutes before depressurizing.

Fonio

The other day I very much enjoyed watching two marvelous animated films on Criterion Channel: Kirikou and the Sorceress and Kirikou and the Men and Women. Both films are magical, artistic, deep creations, and I found them engaging and captivating. They involve a tiny boy, Kirikou, and his courageous fight against a sorceress and her fetishes on behalf of his people–even as said people are not always as gracious about his efforts as they should be. Highly recommended!

I mention this because, at some point in the second film, one of the village women comes to stay at Kirikou’s house. Kirikou’s mother invites her in, saying:

This caught my attention. Fonio? What is it? I had never heard of it, so my eyes were glued to the screen to see what it would look like. And here it was:

This looked exactly like something I would very much enjoy eating, so I quickly looked it up. Fonio turns out to be a West African grain, gluten-free and rich in protein and nutrients. It cooks very quickly and can be used similarly to quinoa, couscous, or rice. A restaurateur in Harlem wants to uplift Fonio and make it an exciting new grain option for Western palates, noting that, by contrast to quinoa (where the Western demand removed it from Andean tables), Fonio had been rejected as a food staple for quite a while in West Africa on behalf of Western options.

This is quite sad, because fonio is not only healthy, but delicious! I ordered a bag on Amazon; it’s quite economical, as in cooking it expands considerably. The fonio-to-water cooking ratio is 1:2, and you can add a teaspoon of oil and a little bit of salt (though it’s not really necessary, in our experience.) It comes out fluffy, kind of like couscous or quinoa, and has a very flavorful, nutty taste. I can see serving it with a variety of vegetable stews and learning more about West African cuisine. Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Risotto with Trumpet Mushrooms and Vegetables

I had just finished eating leftover mejedderah when Chad called me to announce we were going to have four guests for dinner–all four of them fierce martial artists just out of a four-day tournament! Easy peasy – a nice risotto, served with some vegetables and dip and gazpacho, did the trick.

For the rice I used whole-grain arborio, which is not very easy to find on the shelves but you can order it here. It has the glutinous quality of its white cousin with more nutritional goodness. I also had trumpet mushrooms, which slice beautifully into rounds, some greens, a heap of caramelized onions, and lots of stock.

Ingredients:

1-2 tsp olive oil
1 1/2 cup onions, thinly sliced
1 cup sliced trumpet mushrooms
2 cups greens (kale, collards, chard), chopped into small bites
2 cups brown arborio rice
6 cups vegetable stock
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp fresh rosemary
2 tbsp fresh oregano
salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

Heat up olive oil in a large pan. Add the onions and toss about until caramelized (this could take you a good ten minutes.) Add the mushrooms, greens, and rice, and toss for a few more minutes. Then add 1 cup of stock, bring to a boil, then lower the heat and cover the pan. Cook until almost absorbed. Then, add another cup of stock, plus the yeast and half the herbs. Repeat the process by which you let simmer until almost absorbed and then add another cup until all stock has been added. When all stock is absorbed and the rice is fully cooked, place in serving bowls and sprinkle the remaining half of the herbs. Enjoy!

Tacos with Baked Tofu, Avocado, and Mango

This whole feast on the left, complete with homemade tortillas, took me 20 minutes to make. Easy peasy! Of course, we benefit from the fact that Casa Lucaz #3, our local grocery store, keeps fresh masa bags for purchase near the counter. Here are the instructions, for two people:

First, make the tofu (the most time-consuming task.) Heat up the oven to about 420 degrees. Cut up 150g tofu into little cubes. In a shallow dish, mix:

Ingredients:

1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp soy sauce
1.5 tsp liquid smoke
1 heaping tbsp nutritional yeast

Then, add tofu cubes to the dish and toss around until coated. Place cubes on silpat mat on baking sheet in a single layer and forget about the tofu for 20 minutes.

Then, make the salad: lettuce, avocado, mango and cilantro, with plenty of lime juice.

Then make the tortillas: I used masa and a tortilla press. I’m especially fond of making tiny tortillas, 3-4 inches in diameter, because they look cute. Wrap both sides of the tortilla press with saran wrap or parchment paper and place a small amount (the size of a ping-pong ball or less) on the bottom side, closer to the back hinge. Then, carefully close the press and use the handle to press. Gingerly peel the tortilla of the paper/saran wrap and place on a hot, dry griddle. After 1 minute, flip over to other side; after 1 more minute, tortillas are ready.

Even More Buddha Bowls!

You already know I’ve been very enthusiastic about Buddha bowls lately, right? Exhibit A; Exhibit B. Well, here’s Exhibit C, just to give you more inspiration to concoct your own. The toppings are incredibly easy to make:

Beets: I steam them in the Instant Pot for eight minutes and then cut into bite-sized pieces.

Carrots and Brussels Sprouts: This time I halved the sprouts, cut the carrots into matchsticks, and rubbed both vegetables with a little bit of mojo de ajo that I had lying around from having made Mexican food earlier in the week. I then placed them on a silpat mat on a baking sheet and sent them into the oven, at 350 degrees, for about 25 minutes.

Zucchini in Tomato Sauce: I had a few spoonfuls of tomato sauce lying around from a nice ravioli dinner yesterday. I thinly sliced up two large zucchini and sauteed them in the sauce until tender.

Chickpeas: I could’ve gotten fancy with this and baked them with spices, but this time I simply spooned cooked chickpeas with some fresh ground black pepper.

In the center I have a few spoonfuls of kimchi.

And the whole thing sits atop a layer of quinoa cooked in vegetable broth.

Which is another illustration of the principle: if there’s an abundance of colorful, wholesome ingredients, you don’t have to be particularly fancy with the preparation of each topping – just place them nicely in the bowl and you’ll have a fabulous lunch.

More Buddha Bowls!

Here’s another variation on the Buddha Bowl theme! This one has, as its base, some leftover brown rice, stir-fried with spinach and mushroom. On top is a romanesco broccoli, accompanied by beets, sweet potato, cucumbers, radishes, two types of kimchi, and some sliced Sproutofu (a very easy way to eat tofu when you don’t have energy to marinate and bake anything.)

I really encourage you to experiment–really, all it takes is to use cooked, raw, and fermented vegetables, with a starch and a source of protein in a creative and colorful way.