Vegan MoFo: Day 1

Long time, no blog!  It's only Monday, but it's been quite a week.  I flew in from PDX last night where I'd just spent 3 days hanging out with the lovely Mars and his adorable dog.  Anyway, I've been back in Pasadena for 24 hours and suddenly it's Vegan MoFo.  It's 106 degrees fahrenheit outside, and the last thing I want to do is turn on the stove.  And I have no food.  Because it's 106 degrees outside.  So what do I do?

Well, earlier today, I walked to Trader Joe's.  And came away with a giant bag of spinach, a box of beautiful peaches, and four almost overripe avocados.  "But that doesn't make a meal," I thought to myself while eating pickled beets out of the jar with chopsticks and talking to my good friend choirqueer.  "I want dinner!"  Choirqueer told me, just eat the avocados.  But as good as avocados are, they are also not a meal.  And then I realised the answer was in my hands.  Beets!  These spicy maple beets that I picked up at Burlington Pride last month must be the answer.  So I figured I could stand the heat for 20 minutes and fired up the stove to cook some quinoa.  Less than an hour later, I present you with...

Spinach-Quinoa Salad With Umeboshi-Sesame Vinaigrette

Because somehow, "it's too fucking hot to cook salad" didn't sound quite as nice.

This salad was pretty freeform.  First, I cut up:

- 1 Peach
- 1/2 Avocado

Then I tossed about 1/2 cup cooked quinoa with two large handfuls of baby spinach.  My hands are not very large.  If you are not a tiny human being, I suggest using just one large handful.

Finally, I mixed:

- 1.5 T Umeboshi Vinegar
- 1 t Toasted Sesame Oil
- 1 t Dijon Mustard
- 1 T Sugar

You can leave the mustard out.  I just put mustard in fucking everything.  Tossed the spinach-quinoa mixture with the peach and avocado, topped with some pickled beets so as not to dye everything purple, and then poured the dressing over it.  Et voilà!  Too hot to cook immediately turns into a tasty summer salad.