Quinoa Cooking

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Jerry

If you’ve never experienced quinoa cooking before you’re in for a real treat. Since I first tried quinoa it’s been a whirlwind of different experiments to see what works and how it tastes. You know how it is when you first try something and you really like it, you just can’t get enough.

In the first week I had quinoa three times and each time had multiple variations of it to taste. Once you learn how to cook quinoa its then time to try some different quinoa recipes to find what suits your taste. I have already tried several different recipes from the Quinoa Cooking guide and been pleased with the ones I’ve sampled.

We like to eat soup around our house quite a bit (especially in the wintertime) and there are some great soup recipes in there. I just tried the vegetable soup recipe and it was very good. The only thing I did was add some beef (I’m still a meat and potatoes guy) making vegetable beef soup. I thought it was great. Normally we just get the prepackaged soup mixes and add our own ingredients. I can see where substituting quinoa for rice or noodles will be a great addition. You could put in a half cup of rinsed, uncooked quinoa into any of your favorite soup recipes for additional filler. I like my stews and soups a little thicker anyway.

Quinoa cooking has been around for centuries, first discovered by the ancient Inca civilization in the Andes Mountains of South America. Quinoa is a seed that comes from a plant species called Chenopodium, or the goose plant. That is a picture of the plant on the top of the website.

Quinoa is pronounced like keen-wa, I guess it makes sense in a sideways sort of kind of way. When cooking quinoa you are actually cooking seeds that are packed full of nutrition, easy to digest, and really good for you. You can find a link to a nutrition page on my how to cook quinoa post. As a bonus quinoa also tastes good which is something I appreciate very much. You can check out my story here. I like food that tastes good and as I have seemed to take over as chief cook and bottle washer around here I’m looking for ways to put together good meals in an efficient manner. A few short years ago I could’ve never imagined I’d be talking about quinoa cooking on a blog. Change is good.

If you’re planning to cook quinoa in the near future you will probably need to find some. I think with the growing popularity of quinoa you will see more of it becoming available in your local supermarkets. Karla found it in our local Cub Foods. If you’re in an area close to health food stores they usually carry different varieties. Or if you’re like me, you go and search online. I have found many websites where you can purchase a variety of quinoa products. I have discovered that your best bet is probably just looking on Amazon. Click on Quinoa Cooking Products where you’ll find many different products from bulk to box noodles. I went in search of comparison shopping with the brand names available on Amazon directly to the individual websites and found the prices were about the same. Amazon has a wide variety of choices. I also ordered a six inch strainer from Amazon for rinsing before I cook the quinoa. I had mentioned my trouble with to big of a pattern with my strainer in an earlier post.You can check out the strainer with the link on the side.

I hope this helps you get started with your quinoa cooking. It’s been a lot of fun for me and I will continue experimenting and letting you know what I’ve tried.

You can check out the Quinoa Cooking guide here if you like.



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Quinoa Cooking with wild rice

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Jerry

For this quinoa cooking concoction I have a couple of different things I’ve tried that I’ll tell you about. The first concoction was wild rice and quinoa. Karla (wife) was making the rice and I was going to add the quinoa later. According to directions Karla started with one cup uncooked wild rice harvested right here in our home state and added two and one half cups water and a dash of salt. The rice was supposed to boil and then simmer for forty to fifty minutes. The original plan was to add one half cup uncooked quinoa seed and one cup of water to the wild rice at about thirty minutes of cook time.

After checking the rice at thirty minutes we realized the rice was already done and didn’t really know what would happen if we added more water and quinoa at this time. So we decided we would cook quinoa separately and mix it in with the wild rice after the quinoa was cooked. I used the how to cook quinoa method that works very well for me and made one half cup uncooked quinoa.

After the quinoa had simmered for fifteen minutes we mixed it together with the wild rice and served. A little butter and a little salt and pepper and we had a real taste treat. This is delicious. The texture of cooked quinoa reminds me lot of eating wild rice. They both have that crupop when eating and taste great.

For my next quinoa cooking we had ordered some red quinoa from Amazon to sample and compare to the regular quinoa we have used so far. I cooked the red quinoa in the same fashion as in how to cook quinoa with one cup seeds to one and three quarter cups of water. I brought it to boil and simmered for fifteen minutes then served.

The red was definitely different than the regular quinoa. The red has a stronger taste which is good but this batch was way crunchier. If you’ve read the cook quinoa post you know I don’t really like my deserts crunchy and that applies to most other foods I eat also. It’s ok for potato chips to crunch but not my vegetables. This batch of quinoa cooking reminded me of eating corn flakes for breakfast.

I am going to have to experiment a little more with the red quinoa and see if I can get it down to the crupop I like. The next time I cook red quinoa I will up the water to two cups and see what happens. I will play around with water amounts and cooking times and see what happens. Maybe the red quinoa is just a harder seed and will not soften up as much. I’ll keep you posted right here on Quinoa Cooking and let you know how it comes out.

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Quinoa Cooking Concoctions

Posted on April 22, 2011 by Jerry

I thought I would add this category to show you where I’ve tried some different ways to cook quinoa and how they turned out.

When it comes to quinoa cooking, or any other kind of cooking I do around here, I think concoction is a fair word for my style of cooking. Unless I’m following a specific recipe I want to try for the first time like one from the Quinoa Cooking guide my cooking is probably more like an experiment.

You have to keep in mind my story is not one of being the chief cook and bottle washer around here until recent history. When it comes to cooking I just kind of throw things together for the meal, a little of this, a shake of that, cook it, and enjoy eating it.

Also remember to keep in mind I am a typical man and following along with a recipe is like stopping to get directions. I’ll keep driving until I find it.

It is the Lenten season at the time of writing this and as practicing Catholics we don’t eat meat on Fridays until after Easter. Last Friday for supper I made fish fillets for myself (Karla is allergic to fish) and Quin and cheese for the main entrée.

You can read how to cook quinoa here and I cooked one cup of quinoa seeds for this concoction. When that was ready I just kind of took the same approach as the directions on the macaroni and cheese box. (I have that one memorized) I used enough shredded cheddar to suit my liking instead of a pack of powdered cheese, four tablespoons of butter, and just kept adding milk until I got the creamy texture I like. I didn’t really measure, just poured a little at a time until I got what I wanted. The whole time I’m preparing this quinoa cooking concoction I have it heating on the stove as I’m stirring. (I thought I better add this last bit in case there are some who have never experienced the gourmet cooking of macaroni and cheese before.)

The quin and cheese was very good. The taste was not that different from mac and cheese (and I’m a connoisseur) but the texture was. When eating quinoa cooking the texture is kind of a cross between a crunch and a pop. In my cook quinoa post I thought I would have to try and figure out a name for it and I came up with crupop to cover both bases. What do you think? Does that cover it? I like the name.

That concludes this quinoa cooking concoction for now. Check back later to see what else I’m cooking up.

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Cooking Quinoa

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Jerry

Yaay, today is Sunday and we’ll be cooking quinoa for brunch today. I get to introduce most of the family to quinoa for the first time. We didn’t have that big of a crew around home today, only nine for brunch. Four of those were grandchildren ranging in age from twenty months to nine years old. There was a wide range of age groups around to experiment with.

The very first thing I did was get the quinoa cooking so we could sample different taste tests while we made the rest of the meal. You can see how to cook quinoa for serving here. The first test was just plain, that got the thumbs up from everyone. My son in law Nic was a little nervous about trying it because he thought it looked too much like fish eggs. I can’t say it really resembles any fish eggs I’ve ever seen, but I’ve never seen caviar before, so maybe that’s it.

Right when I started cooking quinoa I discovered one cup of the uncooked seeds turns into a lot to eat when cooked. Today I just cooked a half cup at a time which was plenty for everyone to get a good sample.

After we sampled the plain quinoa we turned to other sauces, oils, and seasonings, to try with it. The winning combination from my family was, while it’s still warm put a little butter, lightly salt and pepper, with a few drops of lemon juice. You have to be careful with any type of seasoning or sauce because it doesn’t take much to overpower the flavor of the quinoa leaving you with just the taste of whatever you put on it.

After consulting the Quinoa Cooking guide I figured I’d try the quinoa potato cake recipe as the potatoe part of our brunch. These tasted very good but, you couldn’t even notice the quinoa in them. They tasted just like hash browns to me. Maybe that’s part of the beauty of cooking quinoa, no one has to know you slipped in this super healthy, all natural, protein packed ingredient into their food. Of course it tastes great all by itself. Some of us are maybe just a little bit reluctant about trying new food that is supposed to be really good for us because we like good food.

So anyway for our third course for brunch we had waffles. If you saw my cook quinoa post you read where I was going to add quinoa and call them quinwaffles. I mixed up two batches of waffles that were about twelve waffles each. The first batch I left normal and the second batch I added one cup of cooked quinoa and stirred it up really good. We cooked them the same way with the waffle maker. I found we had to cook the quinwaffles just a little bit longer than the regular waffles, not much. The first thing you notice is the quinwaffles are heavier. They aren’t quite as light and fluffy but they’re delicious. Top them off with your favorite fruit (mine is blueberries) or syrup and a plop of whipped of whipped cream (at least I had healthy in it) and you’ve got yourself a real treat.

The next time you’re making a meal try cooking quinoa first so you can add it to supercharge your meal. You can get some great recipes from the Quinoa Cooking Guide here.

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Cook Quinoa

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Jerry

I’m still in the new discovery phase when figuring out new ways to cook quinoa. Once you’ve learned how to cook quinoa, taste and see, the rest is purely adventure. I have picked up the Quinoa Cooking Guide here and looked at the many different recipes for cooking quinoa.

 The quinoa recipes all look magnificent and I’ll get around to trying more and more of them and letting you know what I think. If you read my story you know that I’m brand new to quinoa and really like my deserts.

That’s the first section I checked out because I was really wondering if they could be good for you and taste great at the same time. After reading the recipes and seeing what you can do with the cooked quinoa I am so looking forward to strawberry season around here to try the strawberry crunch with fresh strawberries from my brother in laws huge patch. It is more of a hobby for him, but the farmer in him always shines through with more strawberries and raspberries than he knows what to do with. I just hate when that happens. (kidding) I may have to back off on the crunch part though. Personally speaking only, I really don’t like my deserts to crunch too much. They should be smooth and creamy.

 I’ve read other peoples explanation of when chewing cooked quinoa it has sort of a crunch to it, I can’t really call it a crunch, but it’s a very pleasant experience when eating it. (I might have to make up a name for it.) It reminds me of tapioca a lot. We eat tapioca a fair amount around our household. It gets me to wondering, if I made some homemade vanilla pudding and just stirred in some cooked quinoa at the end, what would that taste like? Would it be like tapioca with a pop? I’ll have to find out. How about homemade chocolate pudding with quinoa? I think I’m on to something here. Could that be considered chocolate mousse-wa?

 Once you’ve discovered the taste of quinoa the options of what to do when you cook quinoa are endless. Not only does it taste great as a dish all by itself, but quinoa has the ability to turn any recipe into a very nutritious dish also.

It doesn’t matter what you eat quinoa with there are many health benefits that go along with it. It is classed as a complete vegetable protein, much easier to digest than most meat proteins, enriched with vitamins, minerals, and gluten free. It has all that good for you stuff and tastes great too. Is it any wonder the ancient Incas wanted to keep it for themselves.

 Sundays around our house are a day where the whole family (kids, grandkids) gets together at our house for brunch. Karla and I just love it and we have a great time doing it. If just the immediate family all show up with spouses, children, and significant others there will a dozen of us. We can usually count on a few stragglers wandering in also. This will be a great opportunity to cook quinoa and experiment a little for some new ideas. I wonder what quinoa will taste like in waffles. Would that be called quinwaffles?

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How to Cook Quinoa

Posted on April 8, 2011 by Jerry

Hello all, I’ve just joined the ranks of learning how to cook quinoa. I found out about quinoa by a more roundabout way. You can read my story here. After doing some research on cooking quinoa and all the great nutritional benefits that go along with it, I decided to give it a try. It was a great choice.

The first ingredient you need in cooking quinoa (maybe the only ingredient) is quinoa. Now if you’ve read my story you know I’ve never been much of a health food kind of guy. I figured I would probably have to look around for a health food store to find quinoa. Where I live there aren’t a lot of these places around.

Fortunately for us, my wife Karla was in Cub Foods about ten miles from where we live and after rounding up a couple of store clerks who never heard of it, lead to another clerk who knew they carried it and where it was. As a side note that last clerk told Karla how much he liked to cook quinoa. They had only had one brand, but they had it. (Since then I have found more options I’ll give you in a later post)

So you can guess what we had for supper that night. (dinner is at noon and supper is at six o’clock in the evening)

When reviewing how to cook quinoa I had read to take a cup of quinoa, put it in a strainer, and rinse thoroughly for about a minute to get rid of something called saponin. It is a natural waxy coating on the outside of the seeds to deter insects and birds from eating up the crop. Leave it to Mother Nature to figure out an all natural way to control pests. When I poured some quinoa I was surprised at how small the seeds were. I guess I really didn’t know what to expect, but I was looking for something closer to the size of a popcorn seed.

We had a screen strainer with a fairly tight pattern and the seeds didn’t fall through quite as fast as I could pour. I have since ordered a new strainer especially for rinsing quinoa and if it works I’ll let you know. Now back to quinoa cooking. After rinsing as best as I could I added one and three quarter cups of water and threw it on the stove to boil. I had read when learning how to cook quinoa to add anywhere from one and a half cups to two cups so I split the difference. I brought it to a boil and let the quinoa simmer for fifteen minutes. We were now ready to try our first quinoa cooking. It was fantastic.

I really don’t know what to compare it to. Quinoa has a unique texture when chewed it is somewhere between a crunch and a pop. Karla and I decided it was about as close to wild rice as anything else we could think of. When quinoa is used as a substitute for rice with stir fry it is excellent.

We’ve since tried a few experiments just playing around. After your quinoa is cooked we like it plain with a little butter and just a few drops of lemon juice. We have tried it with soy sauce and Italian dressing. In both instances we would rather eat the quinoa just plain. We are looking forward to more quinoa cooking around here. You know how it is when you find something new and you just can’t get enough.

I’ll leave you with the final experiment I tried. I wouldn’t recommend it, but maybe you’ll like it, who knows. On this recipe I was thinking maybe this could be a quick way to make a tuna casserole. I cooked the quinoa first, then I added a can of cream of mushroom soup, and last but not least I put in a can of tuna.(I guess I should say the ingredients of the can) I stirred it all together while heating it up on the burner and voila` there it was. I think maybe tuna surprise would be a more appropriate name for it. This could be just one of the many options when learning how to cook quinoa. One final note with quinoa cooking is a cup of uncooked quinoa turns into a lot when cooked.

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Wecome to Quinoa Cooking dot org

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Jerry

Quinoa Cooking information coming soon!

Posted in Quinoa Cooking information | Tagged cooking quinoa, how to cook quinoa, quinoa cooking | 1 Comment