Quinoa comes in three colors, white, red and black. The above picture is red quinoa. Quinoa is a super grain. What is a super grain you ask? Well it's a grain that contains all 8 of the essential amino acids to make it a complete protein. Quinoa also contains lysine, which wheat does not, as well as niacin, iron and potassium.
Quinoa is prepared by simmering in water 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water (1 cup of quinoa to 2 cups of water) until water is absorbed (about 12 minutes when I did it tonight).
The texture of quinoa is much like that of al dente pasta or of brown rice. In fact tonight I added quinoa to our brown rice and it was hart to tell. The flavor is a little 'nutty' and quite pleasant. A suggestion from the WoW class was replacing 1/2 the ground beef in a recipe with red quinoa.
See the quinoa? My kids saw it too- luckily they're pretty good about eating what they're given, and I've been so excited by this class that I've been talking about it practically non-stop since I've gotten home. Luckily my next door neighbor and friend is excited to and is willing to listen to me talk about how I've been incorporating things and give me tips/hints on better ideas.
I added quinoa into our pizza sauce last night (after blending you'd not even know it was there) and my husband even added some to a chocolate shake tonight. I've also added it to spanish rice.
I paid $2.65 a lb for quinoa at the health food store. I cooked up a cup of quinoa and used some of it tonight and put the rest into snack sized ziplocs and stuck it in the freezer where it's supposed to be good for 6 months.
More about quinoa
2 comments:
I'm glad to see this grain popping up more and more. I hope it helps drive the cost down more! I love the stuff, so feel free to go on and on about it all you'd like.
I have only ever tried white quinoa--I am going to pick up some red next time I am at Good Earth. I love the idea of adding to ground beef (or ground turkey in my case). There is an excellent recipe on allrecipes for Quinoa and Black Beans that is always a hit with friend when I make it. Thanks for the ideas and inspiring me to use it more.
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