Quinoa, avocado and humms salad and an unsatisfactory variation

I came to like quinoa, this very much mispronounced and hippie grain, through a very non-hippie dish of quinoa, potato and cheese casserole bake from my college dorm cafeteria. It was savory(cheese) and crunchy(thinly sliced potato) and chewy(quinoa) and fatty(cheese again) and all sorts of goodness. Later Justine also shared with me one or her creations, a modified fried rice with zucchini, eggs, kielbasa and corn with quinoa replacing rice, good hot or cold, for breakfast or anything after. Then earlier this year at a very hippie restaurant in Palo Alto, LYFE kitchen (you can tell from the spelling), apparently created by some high-rank McDonald's personnel under the disguise of 'healthy fast food,' I ordered a wrap that's quinoa, adzuki beans, 'forbidden rice'--heaven know what's that, hummus and avocado in whole wheat tortilla, accompanied by a side of greens of course. It was very good, and I was quite pleased with my decision, which I mulled over way too long between the more exotic ('forbidden,' ooh la la) quinoa wrap and comfort flat bread. Though I have to point out a major flaw in the 'healthy fast food' idea: this is a restaurant that has assorted potted herbs as decorations, and where you will spend orders of magnitude more time mulling over the menu items and guessing what they are than over McNuggets and fries, and that, rather than the preparation time in the kitchen, often becomes the time limiting factor, or rate determining step (chemical kinetics cough*). It really is okay to get your food in 20 minutes rather than 10 when you've spent 15 minutes reading the multiple menus (gluten free, vegan, winter, breakfast, normal).

Anyways, so I got inspired by the quinoa wrap, and made my own variation in a salad form (picture will follow) that came out quite well. I cook 1/4 cup quinoa, 2 tbsp each of black beans and corn in 3/4 cups water, to which I add 2 tbsp hummus. I sautee a carrot, a zucchini, a quarter onion (and sometimes a yellow bell substituting any above) in olive oil. I chop up an avocado, and mix all of the above together, sometimes with sauteed tofu, sometimes salted edamames. That is two meals. Of course if I eat if for two meals i mix in the second half avocado later because avocado oxidizes and turns brown. It's dry, good cold, and therefore excellent for packing lunch. Also none of the veggies turns yucky left over like leafy greens, another plus.

But today I substituted about 2 cups of kabocha squash for the quinoa and black beans, and sesame seeds for the hummus, and it was quite tasty except the buttery softness of the avocado fared very poorly up against the starchy, tougher squash and virtually became invisible to my tongue (texture- rather than taste-wise). Next time I will drizzle sesame oil in place of the avocado to spin it toward oriental. I looked up kabocha squash afterwards, and it turns out this subtly sweet, starchy-tasting and squash is not nearly as carb-loaded as other squashes and should really be thought of as a fibery rather than starchy vegetable. But it tastes so good! Perhaps next time i will throw in more corn and/or substitute with sweet potatoes.
 

Note to self: I'm eating a lot of carrots lately, pairing it with every fatty food to take advantage of the beta-carotene, a precursor to the fat soluble vitamin A. Can broaden selection to other orange/red-hued foods such as squashes and yams and sweet potatoes.