no tea after 12

OK look, through the (almost) 30 years my life I have been vegetarian, vegan, carnivore, omnivore, pescatorian, and any other variation of "picky" you can come up with. Nowadays I've gone from "picky" to "piggy" and I'm ok with it. At least my therapist says I'm making progress. Alright, I get it that not everyone hugs trees and eats weirdly pronounced grains. And I also realize that most of you will think that Quinoa Pie is some kind of trick, like mincemeat pie made with real mince or something weird your Granny tried to pawn off on you as a little kid. But listen people, I'm telling you this is good stuff. Would I lie to you baby? Sorry, I needed a little Charles & Eddie moment there, I feel better now.  

So I'm gonna tell you about one of my other BFF's now and although I haven't asked her permission to write about her here, I learned that asking permission doesn't always yield the answer I want so I'm gonna go ahead and do it and ask for forgiveness instead. Mandi is my oldest friend. Wait, let me rephrase that, she is the friend I've known the longest. She's my all-time BFF and we've been friends for almost 15 years now. Woah. We met when we were 15 working in a coffee shop together and although we went to different high schools we became fast friends. The things I love about Mandi are far far FAR too many to mention here but to summarize she is beautiful, kind, funny and fun, supportive, creative, and a damn good cook! She and I were two peas in a pod for the 6 years before I moved here, and although our pod has an ocean between us now we always seem to be on the same wavelength. I miss her ALL THE TIME. I often I wish we could just go eat mountains of sushi, go shopping (we are incredibly good at this), or just watch trashy TV (Newlyweds anyone?). The last few times we've seen each other have been our respective weddings and they were both incredibly special, but I know we need to see each other again soon so we can just be silly and ridiculous and eat a huge cobb salad on the strip in Key West. Mandi are you listening? We'll send the hubbies jet skiing and eat crab cakes until we burst, OK? Sorry, inside joke. 

So when I was a picky eater all those many years ago, Mandi was my inspiration to try new things. She got me to eat sushi (something I will forever be indebted to her for), and eggplant (yes, really), and probably so many other things I can't remember but I'm sure there's many. She's never been picky and coming from someone who was funny about eating tomato seeds I really admired that quality, so all these years later I am here THANKING her.

She sent me this recipe the other day for Quinoa loaf and her exact words were..."It was so delish, I know it sounds like it would be dry and boring, but it was really flavourful with great texture." So if she says its good, its good. I made a few changes to the recipe, like omitting the peas, since I do not enjoy eating peas (hey, I didn't say I was cured of ALL of my pickiness), and I also added a moonblush tomato salsa for a bit of fresh concentrated tomato flavour to play off the sundried in the recipe. I made it into a pie instead of a loaf, and I cannot believe I'm actually going to admit this here because this is one neurosis I probably shouldn't share. But I changed it into a pie because I don't like the word "loaf".  Weird, yes, but "loaf" grosses me out. Mandi gets it.

Try this pie, please.