Flowering Kale with vegan 'sausage' and Cubanelle pepper

I made a relatively simple but tasty dinner tonight. My wife picked up more flowering (also known as ornamental) kale, after our very positive experience last Monday. This time it wasn't as fresh, and the resulting dish wasn't quite as tasty as last time, but we both still found it to be quite good.

I simply sauteed in a large pot some sweet onion, chopped into large pieces. As the onion started to become clear, I added chunks of apple-sage artisanal vegan Field Roast Grain Meat Company sausage, sauteed a few more minutes, added cumin and quickly sauteed an additional half minute or so (minding that the cumin didn't burn), then turned the heat down to medium and added the flowering kale with most of the stems intact. I stir fried for about 3 minutes or so, cooking the leaves down a bit, then adding salt and freshly ground black pepper.

I also made a simple quinoa side dish by very briefly sauteeing a little bit of sweet onion and ginger, then adding quinoa and water in a 1:2 ratio (sometimes I use vegetable broth instead of water, but with the onion I thought I'd aim for a more basic flavor), as well as a little salt, paprikia, and turmeric. I brought it all to a boil for a minute or two, then turned the heat off and let it sit, covered for 5-7 minutes till the water was absorbed and the quinoa took on its characteristic cooked look of an open spiral. I also served some delicious olive bread with roasted tomatoes and cucumber slices over lettuces, with lemon juice, freshly ground black pepper, and salt.

Yesterday, my Mom invited us over for some of her Indian cooking, including okra, eggplant, and lemon rice. On Saturday, we had our annual vegetarian society holiday party - it was very well attended with around 50 people! I made my chocolate baklava with pistachios on my wife's request; she wanted to help and learn how to make it. We had fun working together, and the result garnered raves.