Quinoa with Balsamic Roasted Mushrooms

(recipe from wholefoodsmarket.com)

Serves 6.

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
1 small pear, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks
1 garlic clove, halved
2 lbs. portobello mushrooms, stemmed
1 cup quinoa
3 cups tightly packed spinach, chopped
4 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 475F.

Put vinegar, mustard, pear, and garlic in a blender with 1/3 cup water and blend until smooth, about 1 minute.  Cut mushrooms into chunks and combine in a large mixing bowl with 1/4 cup of the pear balsamic dressing.  Spread mushrooms in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet.  Roast mushrooms until tender, stirring occasionally, 20 to 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let cool slightly.

While mushrooms roast, prepare quinoa.  In a medium pot, bring 1 3/4 cups water to a boil.  Stir in quinoa, cover pot, reduce heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes.  Remove pot from heat and set aside, covered, 10 minutes more.  Uncover and fluff quinoa with a fork.

Combine mushrooms, quinoa, spinach, green onions, almonds, salt, pepper, and 1/2 cup more pear balsamic dressing in a large, wide serving bowl.  Stir to mix well.  Serve with remaing dressing on the side.  Serve this dish warm, room temperature, or cold, as a side dish or the main event.

(Made 9/7.  At first this recipe confused me, because the spinach is never cooked, but they say to maybe serve it warm...  Turns out, when you add the quinoa and mushrooms to the spinach, the greens kind of wilt.  The dressing is very good.  I predominantly ate this at room temperature for lunches, and it kept well for several days in the fridge.  Not my favorite recipe ever, but grew on me.  I ate some of the extra dressing tossed with greens later on.)