Veggie Cocoa Quinoa

Last time I was up visiting home (Maine), my grandparents gave me their steamer/rice cooker.

I’ve never used one before, thought about using one before, or really even known what one does with a steamer/rice cooker. Well okay, the name makes it kind of obvious but I’ve always steamed my veggies on the stove and cooked my rice in boiling water. Why mess with something that works just fine?

Did you know you can cook chicken in this thing? Yup. It says so on the box.

So, here’s the deal, I knew I wanted to make this tonight. I had fully intended to make it stove-top but when a rice cooker was mentioned I thought, I have one of those.

After ripping the box open like a child on Christmas morning, I discovered that there were no instructions. After some serious google-ing, I found a pdf file of the manual, phew. There was nothing about quinoa so I did some more searching and found a site that said to cook it for 20 minutes in the rice cooker. Well, it took mine nearly 40 minutes to absorb all of the liquid and I used the 2/1 ratio instructed. So keep that in mind…

Anyway, into my rice cooker went 1 cup red quinoa (rinsed), 2 cups vegetable broth, one cinnamon stick, 2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/4 tsp chili powder, 1/4 coriander and 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper.

These are the add-ins. Black beans, yellow onion and super sweet baby bell peppers.

While my quinoa was taking its sweet time in the rice cooker, I cooked up the onion (chopped) and the peppers (also chopped) in about 1 tbsp Roasted Garlic Olive Oil. I cooked the onions until golden then added the peppers. Since the quinoa was still cooking, I removed them from the heat and set aside. I also rinsed the black beans and set those aside too.

Once the quinoa is done (liquid is completely absorbed and you can see the grain), add it to pepper and onion mixture. Then add the black beans. Salt and pepper to your taste and if you want, add a dollop of plain Greek yogurt.

This dish is SO hearty. If you don’t like things that have a bit of a kick, reduce the cayenne (though I thought there was the perfect amount). Next time I will also be going back to my stove-top method…

But, I’m sure the steamer/rice cooker will get put to good use in the future. Chicken perhaps?

Not-Fried Green Tomatoes

This is my haul from the farm stand yesterday. I could have gone crazy but they only take cash and all I had on me was $3. Yep, I got all this for $3.

Which one of these vegetables got to be the shining star in my dinner last night?

If you couldn’t guess by the title of this post, it was the green tomatoes. Finding them, so big and perfect, threw my previous plan for dinner right out the window.

I’ve never cooked with green tomatoes before. The only dish I think of is, of course, Fried Green Tomatoes. Yes, I’ve seen the movie more than once. Yes, I cried when… well, if you’ve seen it, you know. But by far, my favorite scene in the movie is when Kathy Bates wraps herself up in plastic wrap. I hope I’m thinking of the right movie. Anyway…

I thought, I could bread and oven-fry the tomatoes… but that didn’t really thrill me. Then I thought, hmmm, maybe I could bake them and do something with crumbs to give them crunch but not take away from their great flavor. So this is what I came up with…

Sweet & Spicy Crispy Baked Green Tomatoes

Ingredients:

2 Large Green Tomatoes
Brown Sugar
Crushed cracker crumbs
Cayenne Pepper
Butter or similar spread (I used Brummel and Brown)
salt and Pepper
Cooking Spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut tomatoes in slices about 1/2 inch thick (about 4 slices to a tomato). Lay flat in baking pan sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add about 1 tsp of brown sugar to each slice. Sprinkle each slice with cracker crumbs. Drop just a dot of butter on top of each slice. Bake for 25 minutes. Those are mine in the oven, I forgot to take a picture before I put them in. While those were baking, I made some Quinoa and while it was still hot, stirred in about 1/4 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese (I made 2 servings of Quinoa). I chopped up some of the remaining green tomato and threw that in with the cheesy Quinoa dish. What a yummy side!

There it is, the finished product. It smelled so great and tasted even better. Puppy wanted to sneak a taste so bad. Finally, he was distracted when I tossed him a rawhide and a cracker… which landed under the open dishwasher. He paid no notice.

Hot Day, Cold Salad

Yes, again the heat influenced a meal choice. This time, a shrimp and red quinoa salad was on the menu. Quinoa is my new obsession. It really is a super-food, gluten-free, high in fiber, protein and low in fat. I've previously used it as a side-dish and this time thought it would be great as the base for a nice cold, summer salad packed with vegetables. The ingredients:
Vegetable broth, shrimp, organic red quinoa, black beans, sweet yellow corn, mushrooms, baby spinach and later on some added cherry tomatoes, lime juice, crushed red paper and cilantro. I started by cooking the quinoa in the vegetable broth and in a saute pan, began to cook the baby spinach and mushrooms. After the quinoa was cooked, I added it to the saute pan along with the rest of the ingredients and mixed in some chopped garlic. Finally, I put the entire salad in the refrigerator to cool for a few hours and enjoyed once thoroughly chilled. It was even tastier in the days to come!