Tuesday 23 October 2012

Quinoa - the new superfood

I'd heard a lot about this mysterious grain (grain?  I think it's a grain...) and finally decided I would try it out.  I didn't let my embarrassing mispronunciation of it (quin-oh-ah) and having my sister correct me (keen-wah) deter me.  I googled a few recipes but nothing really stood out to me, so I decided to make my own (bit dangerous, especially with a food you've never cooked before).  I can't give you the recipe unfortunately, because it was made up on the spot slash in my head.



 It was pretty good - there's beef mince, rice, quinoa, and green lentils in there.  I've also got white wine vinegar, thyme, Moroccan seasoning, salt, pepper, lemon juice and cumin.  The seasoning might seem over the top but they actually worked really well together.  Topped with greek yoghurt nomnomnom.  I made HEAPS last night so we'd have some for leftovers tonight.  I think tonight I'll shread the capsicum and toss it in with the rice/quinoa/lentils as a side (maybe add some zucchini and or carrot?), and cook up some beef eye fillets.

I'm continuing the healthy eating today with 2 wholemeal wraps for lunch - rare roast beef, cucumber, spinach, grape tomatoes, cracked black pepper (with some sneaky real egg mayo).


Btw how crazy was the rain yesterday Sydneysiders?  I passed through 4 suburbs between 4pm and 6:30pm and the weather changed between each suburb.  Sunshine and blue skies at Olympic Park, horrendous rain at Gladesville, light rain in the city, then no rain in the city, then horrendous rain and dark storm clouds at Chatswood, then bright skies and sun came out again at Lindfield.  Ok that's 5 suburbs.  I can't count.

5 comments:

  1. Ohhh I was silently hoping you would blog about the quinoa stuffed capsicums. I will definitely have to give this a go, they look great!

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    1. Hehe ok this is really rough and off the top of my head.

      * 4 capsicums
      * 1/2 cup basmati rice
      * 1/2 cup green lentils
      * 1 cup quinoa
      * 500g lean beef mince
      I contemplated tossing in some pine nuts but didn't want to overdo it

      1. Preheat oven to about 180 C
      2. Halve and de-ssed capsicum and lie facing up on an oiled baking tray - drizzle olive oil and salt and pepper and place the tray in the oven for 30 mins
      3. Soak rice + quinoa in a bowl of cold water for 15 mins
      4. In the meantime, put the lentils in a pot over the stove with heavily salted water on a medium flame for 15 mins
      5. After 15 mins, drain rice + quinoa and add to lentils whilst still on stove - continue to cook for another 15 mins
      6. Whilst that's going, put some olive oil in a pan with crushed garlic (you could easily add a brown onion if you wanted) and fry off the mince
      7. Add the following to the mince:
      * 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
      * 1 tbcp lemon juice
      * 1 tspn cumin
      * few shakes of the Moroccan seasoning in a jar (I think it's McCormacks - the one with the maroon lid)
      * dried thyme
      * salt to taste
      I also added a tspn of sugar but that's out of habit more than anything
      8. After 15 mins, add the rice/quinoa/lentil mixture to the beef
      9. Stir
      10. Serve in half a capsicum with a dollap of yoghurt

      I hope that's not too confusing - I wrote the steps in the order I did them which involves a LOT of multi-tasking.

      Good luck!

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  2. we love quinoa too! i just substitute it for anything i would have used rice or pasta for previously {we hardly eat them anymore} :)

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    1. If you used to cook 2 cups of uncooked rice before, how much uncooked quinoa would you use? (I read somewhere that rice doubles in size but quinoa quadruples in size so you use less??)

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    2. i think it triples in size. I usually cook half a cup {uncooked} and this is enough for the two of us. We're not huge huge eaters though. I would only ever cook 1 cup of rice for us...

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