March 30, 2010

Keen on Quinoa

I watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution this weekend.  If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend you watch it on hulu.com or abc.com.  And then look up the school lunches in your area.   Get informed.  Sign a petition. Cook a meal yourself at home. Maybe try quinoa. 

After watching, I promptly quizzed *S* on the veggies in our fridge. (Thank goodness we actually had veggies in there. Less than 2 months ago those drawers were filled with diet soda!)



One of the other cool things from the show...


JO gave out "I tried a new food" stickers to the kids during their lunch.  We need those!  And if we did have them *S* and *I* would have gotten them last night.  


We made quinoa (KEEN-wah) and *S* and *I* had it for the first time. *S*'s review: "Mama this is AWESOME!" Two helpings of awesome!


Our quinoa came from Trader Joe's. I made it with chicken broth rather than water to give it a little more flavor and we had it with some leftover roast chicken and squash from our CSA.  






Ingredients 
1 c. quinoa
2 c. chicken broth


Directions
Rinse the quinoa at least 3 times.  Really massage them.  It is very bitter if you don't wash it well.  Add the chicken broth and bring to a boil.  Cover and simmer for about 15-20 minutes.  


I did an experiment - one on the stove and one batch in the rice cooker.   I don't think I got the right amount of liquid in the rice cooker.  (Yeah, I know, how do you screw up a rice-like-substance in a rice cooker?? That would be me.) So the rice cooker version was a tad nuttier.  


The little balls were nuttier?  *tee hee*   I really did escape puberty, I swear!


Serve with anything that you where you would normally serve rice.


I think we will try it with some diced tomatoes and onions next time.  Please comment; I'd love to hear your ideas!


So the tally....
NI: 160 cals/3g fat/3g fiber/6g protein
Cost: The box was $3.99 with the chicken broth, it comes to $.34 per serving.

2 comments:

Dawn said...

Last time I made quinoa, I browned it in the skillet with a little olive oil and garlic. After it had time to brown a little, I added the normal amount of water and boiled it. It was really good. Liked it better then with chicken broth or in the rice cooker. Takes a little longer, but really yummy.

Christy Z. said...

Oooo, I'll have to try that next. Plus then you get in your GHGs.