I usually cook my quinoa in chicken or vegetable broth. (For future reference.)

For the stuff you've already cooked, you can make a cold salad by tossing in diced tomatoes, chickpeas (or your choice of beans), diced onion, maybe diced cucumber, toss it with olive oil and red wine vinegar, salt and pepper. t edit Maybe throw some avocado on top, and/or feta.

You can really use quinoa cooked in water as a base for any kind of throw-stuff-together salad. I make a cold fruit salad with it, too -- whatever fruits you want, cut up small if need be, mixed with honey and lime juice.

Treat quinoa like rice. Anything involving a nice sauce will be delightful over it.

Any kind of vinaigrette will work well on already cooked quinoa. Add that some string tasting cheese and some chopped herbs.

You can make a salad with beans and bell peppers and avocado and feta and cilantro in a little bit of olive oil and lemon juice, it's delicious.

Vortex, I'd go with white or yellow cake and chocolate ganache, or buttercream. Thing is, hard as it is to believe, there are people who dislike chocolate. It's easier to scrape the frosting off and eat the cake than to eat the frosting and leave the cake.

I agree with Bev. But you could also ask Farrah, she doesn't like chocolate (how is she my bff? More chocolate for me)

Puppy drove me up a wall today. Just SUPER LOUD BARKING IN MY EAR while I had a headache and felt sick. And then napped at the puppy play place instead of getting some of that energy out. And then more barking. I'm sure my neighbors hate me. My roommate does too. My eardrums do. Ugh. This is why I never wanted to be a single parent to a human child, nobody to hand the kid off to! (Puppy place does daycare but at $55 a day it's prohibitively expensive! Maybe if I had a big work presentation or something but...)

I'm sorry, meara. You might have to consider a training collar. Skinner barks more than I would like, but the collar works for him. I left it in Florida because there isn't as much distraction here to make him bark. I might have to get a spray water bottle for the car though because he barks like crazy if we pass a deer or dog or about anything in the car.

'*O/* Happy Birthday to Trudy *O/*

eta: Why can I never remember how to do that?

In re salads and quinoa - I like to cut up some marinated artichoke hearts and add them to my salads. Adds a nice taste (and the next bite or two will taste sweet).

Marinated artichokes seem like such a decadent and luxurious treat to me. Yum.