Red on red

When we were thinking of dinner yesterday, Dan mentioned quinoa, which I knew we had a package of somewhere buried in cabinets. I knew we also had veggie beef in the fridge, from H-mart, as well as carrots, spinach, and onion. We've also had a bottle of red wine hanging out for about six months that we haven't yet broken into. So, with all these need-to-use ingredients in mind... veggie beef in red wine sauce over quinoa? Sounds pretty good.

I also thought it would -look- good, until I brought out the package of quinoa and realized it was red quinoa. Red on red? And it's not even February... well, either way, it turned out well, and would be a great dish for Valentine's Day!

A lot of red, with some green and orange for balance.

For the quinoa, we put 1 cup of quinoa in a pot with 2 cups water, added some vegetable seasoning (you could use half a bouillon cube or sub 1 cup vegetable broth for half the water), and let it cook for about 15 minutes before adding one finely chopped carrot over the top to cook with the quinoa. We added some spinach in the last five minutes of cooking, about a cups worth.

For the beef with red wine sauce, we first sauteed mushrooms in olive oil for about five minutes. We used a Chinese veggie beef, which actually had a texture similar to mushrooms, and soaked up flavor pretty well. We added the beef to the pan with the onions, and threw in four small sliced mushrooms.

Veggie beef from H-mart

We let everything brown for about 5-10 minutes, then added 1/2 cup vegetable broth and 1/2 cup red wine. Then, the wine and broth should simmer with everything until they've cooked down to about half. The mixture will get much less liquid-y, and acquire a pretty salty taste--to temper the salt, we added about a teaspoon of red wine vinegar. We then put in about a tablespoon of margarine at the end, and let that melt.

The red wine and beef would probably also be pretty good over rice or pasta, and would probably contrast a little more on the plate! We did enjoy the quinoa--which reminded me, remember all that quinoa controversy from earlier in the year, targeted mainly at vegans and vegetarians? (That part was especially silly, since you don't have to be vegan to eat quinoa, and not all vegans eat quinoa anyway!) I found an article on grist that gave a good and well-sourced account for those who were either concerned or pissed-off about all that.

That's it for day 4 of MoFo! Happy reading/blogging!