The Food: Jan. 24, 2007

I'm trying to incorporate new grains (and other foods) into my family's diet. I'm also noticing a sort of trend toward vegetarianism. Not a cold-turkey thing--just a preference to not eat meat more than once a day. Even to skip it all together some days. Part of that is my recent awareness of what I'm eating. I don't want to eat the cheap meat from my local grocery store. (Have you read Diet for a New America by John Robbins? Yeah. Read it.) Organic, natural meat that isn't full of hormones and where the animal actually got to be an animal during its life is EXPENSIVE.

So the point of all that is to let ya'll know I made quinoa.

Quinoa is a tiny little seed-like grain that is full of protein. It's very healthful and excellent for vegetarians because of the protein. You make it like rice--2 to 1 liquid to grain, steamed.

Here's how I did it:

Mediterranean Quinoa Goodness

1 cup quinoa
2 cups vegetarian stock
1 each yellow, red and green bell pepper
3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup tiny grape tomatoes or halved cherry tomatoes
1 small white onion (or half a larger one)
salt
olive oil
1/3 cup pepitas (shelled, roasted pumpkin seeds)


Heat about a tablespoon of oil in a pan. Chop the peppers, garlic and onion fairly small. Add the chopped veggies, cranberries and tomatoes to the pan. The tomatoes will split and sort of break down in the pan. When that happens, add the broth and bring to a boil. When the broth is boiling, carefully add the quinoa. Cover and let cook for twenty minutes over low heat.

The quinoa will be translucent with a white ring of hull around it when it's done. It won't soak up all the water like rice, but it should soak up most. The grain will be translucent with a white-ish ring of hull around it when it's done. Toss in the pepitas.

I added some chicken and apple sausage and blue cheese. Next time I'm going to skip the cheese. There were so many flavors going on, it wasn't needed and barely even tasted. The sausage went perfect, but the dish would have been filling without it and just as tasty. I think a little red wine with the broth would have been good.

Enjoy!