Curried Quinoa With Raisins

This "recipe" for Curried Quinoa With Raisins (like a lot of my cooking) was born out of a mixture of inspiration and improvisation. The idea came from this photo posted by a lovely lady I follow on Instagram and I thought it sounded and looked so good--light yet warming and spicy and fragrant. I happened to have a few cups of cooked quinoa languishing in the fridge and since quinoa normally doesn't inspire me, I got to work right away before my creative mood disappeared.

First I heated some olive oil and sautéed one shallot and one clove of minced garlic for about a minute. I added the cooked quinoa next along with a healthy handful of raisins and just enough chicken broth to moisten the quinoa and to plump up the raisins. I stirred and cooked this for a few minutes before adding (completely to taste) kosher salt, a good amount of curry powder, and a bit of Garam Masala (this sounds fancy but if you like to cook Indian food every so often as I do, this is a fairly basic and easy-to-find spice blend to keep on hand). 

We topped it with creamy plain Greek yogurt because that's my favorite thing to put on all Indian-flavored food, and I have to say it was delicious. We ate it alongside crispy shrimp and an avocado/grapefruit salad but it could easily be a main dish. 

I could think of pretty much endless variations on this basic recipe--toss in some toasted almonds or pistachios, add some chickpeas, sauté fresh ginger with the garlic and shallot, use dried cherries instead of or in addition to the raisins, throw in baby kale or spinach for a little green. If you don't have cooked quinoa already in the fridge then just cook the quinoa first and proceed the same way. (You might be able to skip the chicken broth addition by cooking the quinoa in broth and not letting all of it completely absorb.)

Yum! I hope you try it!