I love these kind of chats, it revives my, sometimes lagging, passion for cooking new foods and so full of renewed enthusiasm I was a busy bee of the culinary variety today.
First up was a recipe that the lovely Yvonne Carty from Hey Pesto cooked at a demo I attended just before Christmas. The only change I made was to swap the dried cranberries in the original recipe for Pomegranate seeds.
Ingredients
Mixture of Diced Vegetables; carrots, peppers, sweet potatoes, and red onion
2 Tablespoons of RapeseedOil
300g of Quinoa ( I used Red Quinoa for a nuttier taste)
1 ltr of stock
Seeds of 1 pomegranate ( or 75g of dried cranberries)
75 g of hazelnuts or pecan nuts
Bunch of Parsley ( I didn't actually have any)
Method
Preheat oven to 180
Toss the vegetables in oil in a large roasting tin
Roast for approx 30 mins
Repeatedly rinse the quinoa in a sieve under cold running water.
Place in saucepan and use enough stock to cover with a bit extra.
Bring to the boil and allow to simmer for about 15/20 mins until the stock has been absorbed.
Mix the quinoa with the roasted veg, the pomegranate and the nuts.
Season to taste.
I had this today warm with some delicious Slow Roasted Shoulder of Lamb and will have it cold for lunch tomorrow with some feta cheese added.
Quinoa was a new one for me but I am totally converted, it is delicious and super healthy, perfect for this time of year.
Sounds-and looks-just delicious. I've cooked quinoa before but it always ends up really sloppy: too much liquid?? I love the addition of pomegranate seeds, very exciting :-)
ReplyDeletePossibly Emily, I just let it cook at a brisk simmer until the liquid was absorbed and then tipped it into a strainer just to be sure. It was my first time cooking with it but definitely not my last, summer salads will have endless possibilities now:-)
DeleteHow did you know I was looking for quinoa recipes? This looks just the sort of food that I like :)
ReplyDeleteJust call me psychic �� really hope you enjoy it, will be blogging a recipe for spiced chickpea cakes later that you might enjoy...stay tuned😊
ReplyDeleteYou see, this is my problem. I would just LOVE this, yum, it sounds absolutely gorgeous and easy too. But there is no way that my kids would eat this, not a chance. Couscous, yes (one of them). But anything that even closely resembles a dried pulse? Forget it! And cooking twice, that's just not on the cards… sigh.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest the girls only tried a little of it but they claimed to like it but did not ask for more, they have all discovered a love for pomegranate seeds though which is great and slightly unexpected. I feel that if I make the food available and have it on the table then little by little they will taste and really figure out what they like. The regular quinoa looks very like couscous and tastes very good so maybe start there!
DeleteThank you, will look at that and thank you for the lovely comments :0)
ReplyDelete…so I tried cooking buckwheat, because it had been sitting in the larder here. Hahahahaha!!! Only a simple makey-uppy recipe to get an idea how it comes out. The girls looked at at me as if to say 'you expect us to eat THIS?'. They didn't even bother picking out the little pieces of sausage that I had mixed in. Now that's a first!
ReplyDeleteQuinoa next, hopefully with more flavour than the buckwheat. I had expected a nutty flavour from the buckwheat but it was just bland.