Tuesday, January 4, 2011

after a brief holiday hiatus . . . I'm back . . . with Quinoa!

Happy New Year!

Starting the year on the right foot - I am attempting to explore some healthy recipes (I don't want to get ahead of myself - I will still be enjoying my butter-y baked goods and cheesy mashed potatoes). We had a nice crab dinner accompanied by mushroom quinoa.
I bought some model-esque oyster mushrooms, they were so pretty I felt a bit bad cutting them up . . .but I did it anyways. I chopped the mushrooms and chopped up a few cloves of garlic.
I threw the garlic into a large saute pan with a little bit of butter. After a minute add in your mushrooms (try not to crowd the pan, do as I say not as I do) and let them cook. I add salt at the end because I wanted the mushrooms to get that dry, nutty flavor instead of drawing out the liquid.
While the mushrooms were cooking I measured out 1.5 cups of quinoa and put it in a sauce pan with 3 cups chicken stock. Once it was boiling I reduced it to a low simmer, covered it and let it cook away for about 15 minutes (until tender).
To finish the quinoa dish, I chopped some cilantro and tossed the sauteed mushrooms and the cilantro in with the cooked quinoa. Salt to taste.
One of the beautiful dungeness crabbies
To fill the veggie quota I made a little 'salad' of fresh watercress, cumquats and a little salt and nice olive oil (very little).
Et voila, our healthy holiday-y meal.

1 comment:

  1. Feliz anyo nuevo, mi prima! OK, WHAT is going on... you make salmon, I make salmon, and now, tonight, I had red quinoa for dinner! (But, with some hastily warmed tempeh, and some veg broth instead of chicken.) I definitely need your help with this. I cook quinoa a lot, and they always say 2-to-1 liquid to quinoa, but I find mine comes out mushy. Please advise. We missed each other on chat today, and I'm off to bed now. muah-muah...

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