Summertime Quinua

For those of you familiar with Heidi Swanson's wonderful blog "101 Cookbooks," you'll recognize the recipe in this post! It features so much goodness -- tofu, quinoa, roasted tomatoes and corn, and my special additions -- cilantro pesto and sunflower seeds : ) I got the cilantro pesto from Whole Foods -- they market the cilantro pesto as their "nut-free" pesto, and I think it looks fairly easy to make from scratch, too. The Bear's Pond brand lists only four ingredients -- cilantro, parmesan cheese, olive oil, and lemon juice. In any case, this totally tastes like summer.

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa
1 bunch red-stemmed kale, chopped
1 bag frozen corn (or the corn from 6 husks of corn, roasted)
1 pint of cherry tomatoes, roasted
1 shallot, minced
1 package firm tofu, cubed
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
cilantro pesto (Bear's Pond, from WF)

I'll confess -- this recipe has a lot of "steps" to it, but the cumulative effect is so flavorful -- totally worth it! There are a few things you can do to streamline your cooking time: make the quinoa and roast the tomatoes ahead of time. Then, sautee your shallot in olive oil, add the corn, kale and salt until the mixture is mostly cooked. Stir in the quinoa. In a separate frying pan, sautee your tofu cubes with a little bit of olive oil and about two to three tablespoons of the cilantro pesto. Add the tofu cubes and pesto into the quinoa mix. Add the sunflower seeds and roasted tomatoes and you are ready to go!

WARNING: This recipe makes a lot of food -- definitely enough for a family of four, maybe even for two nights : ) I cooked it all because I didn't want the kale to go bad, and I'm sometimes guilty of letting tofu sit too long in the fridge. So, now I have a few frozen dinners on deck for my week of comment writing and exam grading : ) Either totally responsible of me here, or totally a form of procrastination : )