What's For Dinner: Earth Day Dinner Menu With Mushroom Quinoa

Not feeling inspired by your usual dishes? Here's what's for dinner.

Thank your mother today—Mother Earth, that is. Earth Day is a yearly reminder to reduce your carbon footprint, eat more vegetables and spend some time outside. It's also a nice time to appreciate that the powers that be decided against an early pitch for "National Environment Teach-In" as the holiday's official title. As a child, Earth Day may have meant spending the day baking multitier mud pies, but we suggest you honor our planet's bounty by making this dinner menu.

① Main Course: Kuku Sabzi (Persian Herb Omelet)

We take instructions to go green quite literally around here. Plenty of parsley, cilantro and dill, held together by a half-dozen eggs, helps us achieve that goal. The finished dish is round and extremely green—so, basically, it's the earth in omelet form.

② Side Dish: Quinoa-Mushroom Salad

You say "mushroom," we think earthy. This salad has two varieties, and when paired with nutty quinoa, will make you feel like you're adventuring through the woods.

③ Dessert: Maple Thyme Custard

Bundles of fresh thyme are among Mother Nature's most beautiful gifts. They smell like a Christmas tree farm and look like a lush forest for ants, and when steeped in milk with maple syrup, become fodder for an earthy baked custard. Bacon chips may not come from the ground, but we don't think Mother Earth will mind.