Jeff and I just had a delicious mixed lunch of various yummy things.

Our favorite Pacific brand creamy tomato soup. We go through a carton of this stuff every week!

Some quinoa with chickpeas that I made in the rice cooker. Making it with vegetable broth rather than water makes it so much tastier.

Smashed avocado on toast with seaweed flake. We don’t use iodized salt in our house so I try to sneak seaweed in wherever I can to get in our proper iodine fix.

And some leftovers from last night: honey mustard salmon and sauteed veggies. I sliced up some red bell pepper, shiitakes, carrot, and gai lon broccoli (found this at the market and had to try it, it has a broccoli-like stalk but with leaves rather than florets.) I threw in some leftover brown rice, just a touch of soy sauce, and toasted sesame seeds to finish it off. So fresh!

Jeff made us our third round of tea for today to have with lunch. He likes to use the black tetsubin I got him for Christmas when he needs to make a lot of tea.

Awesome lunch of many of my favorite flavors!

Trying to decide what to do with the rest of our day. The sun is finally shining after nearly a week of rain and/or gloom.

What are your weekend plans?

Behold, the newest addition to my kitchen army!

I have been wanting and needing one of these for a long time! This little baby is a Zojirushi induction-heating rice cooker, we bought him with Christmas money we got from family.

Take a peak under the hood…

Yeah, tons of cargo space. This is my kind of hot-rod.

Before heading out to the gym today I filled my new toy with 1 cup quinoa and 2 cups water and set him to cook while I was gone.

That may look more like rice than quinoa to you because it is rice. That’s a shot of some rice I made last night that didn’t turn out too great because I had it on the wrong setting, but I forgot to take a picture of the quinoa before cooking, so this’ll do.

When I got back from the gym I had this waiting for me…

Perfect, fluffy quinoa ready to eat and still warm!

There was a ton of it so I decided to make two different preparations, one sweet and one savory.

For the sweet one, I added the following:

• handful of chopped almonds
• 1/2 cup or so mixed dried cranberries, golden raisins, and goji berries
• about 1/4 cup desiccated coconut
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• zest of a small orange

I then made a dressing with the juice from the orange and a spoonful of honey, and heated it in the microwave so it would be thinner and distribute better. I just tossed it all together for this delicious sweet treat.

That one will be awesome in the morning with some almond milk drizzled over, or piled on top of yogurt. I’ve made a sweet maple cinnamon breakfast quinoa before, but this one is even better!

For the savory one I added:

• half a red bell pepper, chopped super small
• one chopped scallion
• one carrot, grated
• a handful of spinach, chopped finely
• zest of a lemon

For the dressing I used the juice of half the lemon, a pinch of salt and pepper, about 2 tsp. white wine vinegar, 2 tsp. tahini, and olive oil whisked in.

To make I just grated the carrot directly over with a microplane to get it really fine…

And added the chopped spinach…

Having a quality knife has been so wonderful!

Mixed in the dressing and here it is!

Believe it or not, this one was even better than the sweet one!

I had both for lunch with an apple dusted in cinnamon.

The quinoa gave me a big dose of protein to repair my sore muscles after today’s workout. Both preparations were so delicious and I managed to whip up both of them in about 20 minutes total.

I am hopelessly in love with my new rice cooker. I can’t wait to try cooking millet, farro, oatmeal, and of course rice, in it!

Look for many, many rice cooker recipes to come!

Q: What do vegetarian zombies eat?

A: GRRAAAAAAIIINNNSSSS!!!!

I crack myself up. 😉

Anyway, that’s what I wanted this morning too.  I was really in the mood for some kind of hot cereal; oats just weren’t going to cut it. This is what I decided on after rummaging through my bulk storage containers…

Don’t you just love the little tails on cooked quinoa?  I know I do.

It all started with chucking these few things in a pot…

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1 cup almond milk
• sprinkle of cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. maple syrup
• various dried fruits

After mixing…

I let it come to a boil uncovered then turned it down to low and put the lid on. It cooked on low for about 15 minutes, then I turned off the heat and let it sit covered for another 10 minutes.

While I was waiting, I attended to the needs of this rather insistant individual…

Did you miss him? He and Liam have been spending most of their time sleeping in a pile due to the colder weather, so he hasn’t been in my face as much recently. I had to pick him up and rock him to get him to calm down this morning though. He loves to be held!

By the time Lucas was sufficiently soothed, breakfast was ready!

I poured a little more almond milk in my bowl to make a sauce…

It was sweet and warm and satisfying, just what I needed.

Time to finish my tea and get on with enjoying the weekend!