Curried Quinoa And Cabbage Salad

Under a tight book deadline as I am, I don't have that much time to think about what I eat. (Very ironic for a cookbook author, no?)

Mostly, I try to have things around that'll last me several meals. When deadlines get crazy like this around our house, I can't really rely on Bruce for my meals. He's in the kitchen, cranking out recipe after recipe. He's not really interested in food on any sort of schedule, having sampled this and that on spoons and spatulas since early morning. (Nothing like extinction therapy in your own kitchen to cure overeating.)

Anyway, I made this curried quinoa salad earlier this week and have enjoyed it for several meals. It's an easy, summer, vegetarian dish, so I thought I'd post it here, a great make-ahead salad to take to work or have for a light dinner at home. Plus, there's that quinoa, the super grain, chock full of protein.

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Moo Shu Vegetables

The longer I've been in the food-writing business, the more I'm convinced that we professionals have got it backwards. The veggies shouldn't be the side dish, the afterthought on the plate's edge. They should be the center.

No, I'm not going back to being a vegetarian. (Some day, I'll tell you about my fall from grace with a steak off the grill.) As Bart Simpson says, "I love the taste of death." But there's no gainsaying that veggies deserve a much bigger place at our tables. We need to eat lots of vegetarian meals, not only for our hearts' sakes, but also for the planet's.

Problem is, in America we tend to think of vegetarian meals as a bunch of steamed, mushy broccoli on a plain plate. Simply put, "Gack."

So here's a meal that's flavorful and healthy--and vegan, to boot. Bruce even left out the egg, sometimes traditional in Moo Shu preparations. He also cut down the oil to make sure the dish wasn't some calorie-fest. We ate it straight (as it were), no rice necessary--but I can see how a little sticky rice or even medium-grained brown rice would be quite the thing.

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