Curried Quinoa...and Running Feet

I'll get to tonight's rockin' dinner in a minute...mmmmmm....

Curried Quinoa & Mango Salad and Homemade Tortillas with Garlic-Bean Dip

A brief intermission, though, to check out these feet. They ran 3.1 miles this morning:

First let's establish something: I am not a runner. Nope. Never have been.

When it comes to exercise, I'm an aerobics & circuit training gal. Honestly, if the only form of exercise I did for the rest of my life involved keeping my 6:00am DVD-date with my favorite star trainers (Jillian Michaels anyone?) I'd be perfectly happy.

Although I'm not a runner (and likely never will be), I did set a personal goal earlier this year to make sure that I run a 5K at some point in my life. No time like the present, right? So, we'll be running the Toys for Tots 5K Trot at the end of September.

I'll keep you posted occasionally as I progress through my "rigorous" training schedule (Would you call running once a week rigorous?)

Enough about exercise though! Let's move on to food. Amazing food. Food you should cook for dinner TONIGHT. Let's talk curry salad.

Found this little number in the latest edition of Cooking Light magazine, and I knew I had to try it. The recipe calls for quinoa, but if you're out (like we were), you can substitute another grain (we used bulgur), or even couscous. If you use bulgur, you can follow the same cooking method I use in my bulgur salad recipe.

This dinner rocked my socks off. The curry seasoning was a perfect addition to the sweet mango, red pepper, and crunchy celery. Although the recipe doesn't call for it, chickpeas would be an awesome add-in to this salad as well.

We enjoyed our curried salad with homemade flat bread and some out-of-this world garlic-bean-pine nut dip Adam created. But I'll get to the bread and bean dip tomorrow :)

For now, feast your eyes on this salad, and start your grocery list.

Curried Quinoa and Mango Salad

(Adapted from a recipe found in the September issue of Cooking Light magazine)

As I mentioned previously, we used bulgur since we didn't have quinoa on hand when we made this tasty salad. Feel free to sub in the grain of your choice, or couscous.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa, or grain of your choice
• 2 cups broth to cook your quinoa in (you can use veggie or chicken broth, or water if you don't have broth on hand)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• little olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 1/2 tsp. curry powder (approximately! I actually didn't measure tonight :)
• 1 peeled and diced ripe mango
• 1/2 cup diced celery
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1/3 cup raisins

Directions:

1) Combine quinoa and broth (or water) in a medium saucepan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer approximately 15 minutes or until tender. Remove from heat, stir in salt, and cool completely.

2) Heat oil in a medium saucepan on medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Heat for 1 - 2 minutes or until onion is tender. Add curry powder, stir, and remove from heat.

3) Add onion mixture, mango, celery, cilantro, raisins, and bell pepper to the quinoa. Stir to coat. Season to taste.

4) Wow. We were impressed with Cooking Light tonight.

Stay tuned...I'll post the out-of-this-world bean dip and flat bread recipe tomorrow :)