[Firebird Rising]

<disclaimer>My sole purpose in cooking is to make it easy for myself. This means I don't measure very well. I cook to taste. Someday when I am writing a cookbook, I'll have to get over this. But if it's a recipe I've thought up, be prepared to play with amounts since I won't have hard and fast measurements. That said....>

All pictures are clickable thumbnails

Curry Quinoa Salad

• little bit of olive oil
• One 16 lb extra firm water packed tofu, drained, patted dry and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
• two handfuls of raisins or "craisins"
• four cups COOKED quinoa
• 1/3 bag of that prewashed baby spinach
• two handfuls of almond slivers
• curry powder
• Bragg's liquid aminos OR soy sauce
• garlic granules or powder
• 1/3 cup vegannaise

Pour a swig of olive oil into a frying pan. Heat up the pan on medium and swirl oil around, then flip pan upside down over sink and let the oil empty out. You just wanna small bit to keep tofu from sticking. Throw the tofu cubes in and add a few shakes of curry powder (I keep this in a bottle with a shaker lid). Add a few shakes of garlic powder. You can't really overdo it with either ingredient because they will just enhance the quinoa flavor if nothing else. It should look a bit like this:


Squirt some braggs or soy sauce in the pan so you can mix it up and get the tofu coated with the flavors. Again, you can't really overdo it because the flavors will become much diluted when you've added the other ingredients.

Allow the tofu to fry, mixing it with a wooden spoon, until you just start to see the tofu toasting a bit. The tofu should be a dull yellow from the curry seasoning. After the tofu is showing signs of being fried, turn it off.

Grab your almonds and throw them in a small frying pan turned on med-high. You're going to toast them. Let them sit there a minute, then pick up the pan and swirl them or mix them around with a spoon or other apparatus. Let them sit a bit more and repeat. DO NOT STOP WATCHING THEM. I have burned many a nut while attempting to toast it. < I just read that again and it came out a bit different sounding than I meant, but it made me laugh so I'm leaving it. This is a very serious recipe and it needs some humor>



throw the toasted almonds into a glass bowl as soon as they show signs of being toasted (when they're brown in spots). DO NOT leave them in the pan as they'll keep cooking.

Chop the spinach into strips (like the lettuce at Taco Bell, only you don't have to be quite so anal-retentive about the width).

Do the hokey pokey.



Dump it all in a mixing bowl and stir. Oh yeah, throw in the raisins too. Add a bit more curry powder, well, you can add a lot, if you like curry. A bit more means a shake or two.



Eat it either lukewarm or chilled. The kids and I just eat it out of the mixing bowl with a spoon, usually. Then we don't tell my parents and put it in a tupperware for them to finish