Cookbook Club: Pineapple Cashew Quinoa Stir-Fry

The evening I had originally planned to make Pineapple Cashew Quinoa Stir-fry, we came home from the grocery store to find our apartment flooded! Lovely...so we went to spend the night and A's parents house and the following day I came home to disinfect *read: Bleach* everything! Once I finally had the kitchen up to inspection I kicked on some tunes and got to chopping! (I must be very excited about this recipe...I have used 3 exclamation's in 3 sentences!

OK, 4.) 

Thankfully, I had read the entire recipe before attempting to prepare because you are supposed to cook the quinoa the day before and let chill in the fridge. And thankfully quinoa keeps in the fridge for more than one night because it had already be prepared, before the Flood of 2011. I actually used Red Quinoa--the "Tip box" above the recipe recommends a blend of white and red, but red is all I had. I used my steamer to cook 

the quinoa, I find it to be more dependable when it comes to cooking time, and I prepared the quinoa with pineapple juice, cold water 

and soy sauce. Isa and 

Terry were right....try it just once! Yumm! 

I made a few other adaptations to the original recipe: 

-My store was out of Raw and Unsalted Cashews--I used Roasted Salted Cashews, skipped the step where you roast the cashews, and they tasted great! (Also, made for a nice munchie while preparing!) 

-My store was also out of Red Chile, or I might not have looked hard enough. I used a fresh jalapeno instead. Still added a nice kick to the dish but I do love Red Chile... next time I will be sure to pay more attention to my peppers! 

-The recipe calls for frozen green peas or cooked edamame. Well, I used frozen edamame, no problem! I am not a huge fan of green peas anyway, but I think the flavors of this dish are best paired with edamame...it just makes sense! 

-I decided to 86 the Lime wedges (for no real reason) 

The recipe is very easy to follow...chop, sizzle, stir-fry. The only problem...the recipe does not tell you when to add the cashews to the dish. I just ended up tossing them in when I added the quinoa and wet ingredients. 

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this dish! The sweet of the pineapple and the spicy of the pepper blend wonderfully. You get just the right amount of ginger, garlic, mint and basil in each bite. AND it made a ton* of (healthy, satisfying) food! Seriously, we both ate a huge helping for dinner, and I ate it for lunch the next two days! 

*I might have doubled the amount of quinoa--I don't like to measure ;) 

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