Tofu, Veggies, and Quinoa

I had some tofu defrosting in my fridge, and realized I really need to cook it. I tend to do that--after freezing tofu, keeping a chunk in my fridge for when I want to cook it. So I found a recipe on RecipeZaar.com and basically tore it apart. I chopped an onion, some mushrooms, celery, scallions, and tossed in the rest of a bag of snow peas from Trader Joes for veggies. I puttered a bit online and by the time I started cooking, my veggies were nice and dry, making them a lot prettier than when I am impatient and get cooking quickly. I think they also tasted a bit better. I cooked my tofu first in toasted sesame oil (which is my preferred oil when I want a sort of Asian flavor), removed it from the pan and then started cooking my veggies in the same pan. I tossed in some almonds and a couple of capfuls of tamari toward the end and served it over a bed of quinoa.

I cooked my quinoa in my fabulous rice cooker, which shut does an automatic switch from cooking mode to keep-warm mode when it senses the food is done. There were a few places where it was scorched, but it was still wonderful. For some reason, today, I was serious about rinsing it (which you must do to get rid of the saponins and avoid a bitter taste), stirring it with my hand in the mesh strainer. As lazy as I am, if I just take a few seconds extra effort--okay, in some cases, half an hour--it's all well worth it in the end.

It's gotten bitterly cold here in DC, and I am debating making another chili recipe or find a good stew. Last night, I heard the wind just shrieking outside my window. The local weather on NPR said the wind chill was supposed to be 6 degrees! Yikes! While a part of me is glad winter is here--this is normal January weather--another part misses the 60-degree days and will be happy when things warm up in the spring. And it doesn't matter if the groundhog sees his shadow Friday; either way, we still have six more weeks of winter!