Cooking with Quinoa

Finally did it!  Got up early this morning and made the Eggplant Parmesan Quinoa Casserole I mentioned earlier this week.  Not only was this going to be my first of hopefully many recipe try-outs from all the books and blogs I follow.  It would also be my first time cooking with quinoa.

So the recipe I used came from a blog I found while messing around on StumbleUpon one night.  It is called "The Iron You" and it is written by a guy named Mike who is a "triathlete, yogi, health enthusiast and food lover." And man, are his recipes enticing! This one immediately caught my eye and partially why I wanted to start posting about the awesome meals I have been making.

I'm not going to get into the full recipe... that's why I am linking to it here.

But here are some snazzy pics of what I did!

For starters, instead of using a canned tomato sauce, I always just used canned tomatoes and make a mix of my own. So for this recipe I took my favorite canned brand, Hunt's Basil Oregano Diced Tomatoes, then diced up a few more Roma tomatoes I had on hand, and blended them up. I don't know why I don't do this more. I could've ate this straight.

Then it was quinoa time.  With such a weird name, this country bumpkin always thought quinoa would be difficult to make and expensive to boot.  Not so!  I bought a couple bags of these at Star Market for about $5/bag.  And just like rice, a little uncooked turns into A LOT when cooked.  The bag says I can cook it in my rice cooker too.  So healthy and easy?  Hellz yeah I'm making this more often. 

The recipe called for crushed red pepper to be added to the quinoa as it was plain.  I did mine to taste, but I have to say, once you bake this up, the red pepper really becomes more prominent.  So next time I may back off just a wee bit.

Another thing I noticed is when cooking the onions, the recipe called for 1 Tbsp of olive oil.  Cooking nearly a whole onion then adding the eggplant after to the same pan I thought nothing of it.  However, just like with the red pepper, once baked, the flavor really came out.  It wasn't bad, in fact I was stoked that I could taste it.  But just a warning, you may want to reduce the amount if you aren't a fan.

Then it was time to combine all the sauce aspects and let it simmer.  Seriously, my house was smelling amazing during the 30mins this took.  The combination of all the ingredients were very aromatic, especially as I was able to use a handful of the basil from my garden.  That right there was satisfaction enough with this whole recipe. 

After the simmering stage, you just toss in the quinoa with some Parmesan, put into a baking dish and pop it into the oven.

This whole recipe took about an hour, maybe a little more to make.  It was completely worth it though, and the portions are a decent size.  I was worried being on WW that the portions would be small, but when I divided it up into six servings, it was quite a bit.  And anyone out there on WW, it is only 8 points per serving (obviously though it depends on how much cheese you put in).  So I just added some lemon drenched greens with mine to make a meal and both satisfied and full in the end.

And so you know, "Iron" Mike says the longer this sits in the fridge, the better it actually gets as the sauce flavors soak more into the quinoa.  I'm excited for these leftovers tomorrow!  And sorry for not showing the serving I ate... it was too good to put my fork down.