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Thursday, June 30, 2011

anti-recipe #35 daring escapades with quinoa

Once again I found myself the other day as I too often do - 4:30, no dinner plans, starving, and no dada in sight.

I remembered the bag of quinoa up on the top shelf that I spied digging around for popcorn the other day.

I looked in the fridge...hmmm...blue cheese stuck out.

So I did like all mamas do in such a predicament...googled "quinoa and blue cheese".

After digging around I found this recipe. I didn't have half the stuff it called for but it served as a good model.

Fast forward to 6:45pm. Dada is finally home, mama tries to finish cooking while dada gets kids ready for bed, feeling slightly defensive about trying a new dish (kids already having been fed an enticing meal of dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, oranges and broccoli) then the computer dies and mama can't remember recipe for the sauce, then dada mentions he was going to go out for beer with the guys from church (which he never does) mama says forget it just go, then dada says helpfully "maybe I can finish it?"and  mama, as too often these days, bursts into tears.

A fun evening.

The meal however (which mama DID finish ALL BY HERSELF) was a resounding success, suprisingly, eaten while still slightly pouty in front of HGTV after kids were asleep (dada always puts on HGTV for mama when she is crabby, good man).

i seriously suck at taking pictures of food...sorry. i thought
the spinach was pretty though...
Here is how it went down.

Chop some onion, cook in butter in pot.
In same pot, bring 1 cup quinoa to boil in 2 cups water, turn down to simmer, cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
Fry up 3-4 pieces bacon. Remove bacon. Save grease (yes, that is right, save the grease)
Stir a handful of spinach and can of drained garbanzo beans into quinoa pot. Reheat until spinach wilts and beans are warm.
Add 1 tsp sugar, 2 tsp dijon mustard and 2TBS of vinegar to bacon grease in skillet. Reheat and whisk till sugar disolves well.
Dump sauce into quinoa pot.
Add generous amount of blue cheese.
Crumble in bacon.
Serve warm.

The original recipe had red wine vinegar in the sauce and white beans instead of garbanzo and included carmelized onion and mushrooms. Carmelized onions would be a nice touch but...that was one step too many for me. And mushrooms? Eh. I also was thinking this would be good with kale or chard.

Tasty huh? Definitely need to experiment with quinoa more. Maybe a cold salad next? OOOH. With feta and mint and fresh tomato! Definitely...

3 comments:

  1. YUM!! That sounds awesome. I will definitely have to give it a try. I bought a bag of quinoa after reading an article on how awesome it is, then I realized I had no idea what to do with it, and it's been sitting in my pantry since. (My goggling skillz aren't as daring as yours! LOL!) Thanks for sharing!

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  2. mmmm....yummy. i eat quinoa a lot since it's gluten free. i like it cold with goat cheese, basil, tomato, salt and pepper and a bit of olive oil. I'll have to try it hot though. this sounds amazing good job for finishing it yourself! you are a rock star.

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  3. I just loved the story that went along with this. You capture the intricacies of married life to a T. Love it.

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