Diet, Dessert and Dogs

Lucky Comestible II (3): Quinoa-Oatmeal Croquettes

[I thought it would be fun to run a little series over here at DDD: I'll profile one one of my favorite foods, or a food that I've recently discovered and enjoyed, over several days. For this second entry, I'm focusing on Quinoa. The series is presented on an occasional (and entirely arbitrary) basis, before I move on to the next lucky comestible. ]

You guys are too funny!

I would never have guessed that my silly little comment about quotation marks at the end of yesterday’s post could spark so many witty comebacks. Well, quotation marks be damned! Now that I’m officially *back,* I’ll just have to reach waaaay %back % into my punctuation quiver and pick out a few other sharp marks and symbols. And so, right ++BACK++ at ya!

For now, though, I must hold myself >bAcK< and will no longer tap my spinal woes as a source of humor (though the original Spinal Tap, on the other hand, provides its own endless source of punny laughs). And now, let’s get back to today’s Lucky Comestible!

If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’re likely already familiar with my penchant for breakfast foods. The morning repast is, unequivocally, my favorite meal of the day. So how could I go through five different recipes featuring quinoa and NOT include at least one targeted breafast dish?

I’ve already covered a baked good with the Almond-Quinoa Muffins; today, I’ve repurposed Lisa’s amazing Quinoa and Oatmeal Croquettes recipe for a breakfasty-sweet usage rather than the delectable savory meal (smothered in a rich mushroom sauce) that she originally wrote about. Luckily, the recipe is super-easy and employs ingredients I already had on hand, so I was able to whip these up without having to head to the supermarket, which would have undoubtedly strained my finances patience relationship (Oh, just SAY IT:) BACK .

I’ve always thought of croquettes as somewhat pear-shaped orbs that sit under a thick slathering of creamy sauce. As a kid, my mom sometimes made chicken croquettes, which involved grinding, mixing, and shaping the mounds of seasoned chicken before rolling them in breadcrumbs and baking them, after which they were doused with à la King sauce (ie, canned cream of mushroom soup) that had a handful of frozen peas thrown in. Representative of the times, but hardly worth the effort, I always thought.

When I saw Lisa’s recipe, I was a little surprised at the form of these croquettes. Like that iconic fast-food hamburger, they were square rather than round; and like the proverbial bank heist-without-a-hitch, they were almost too easy: simply cook up, spread in pan, then cut into shape. I suppose I could have used a cookie cutter to approximate a rounded shape, but why bother? Who said croquettes have to be round, anyway?

What I like about these little darlings is that the quinoa is very evident–not a co-star, but the main attraction. The oats, while present, don’t really determine much of the overall flavor; rather, they seem to bind the croquettes together instead. The mixture reminded me very much of a polenta in texture and preparation; but the taste was, to my mind, very well suited to breakfast.

And so, still limited by the few ingredients I actually had in the house after the GBR, I pulled out some homemade cranberry preserves as a topper and set about heating these in the griddle for breakfast. I was very well rewarded with a nubby-textured, moist and chewy croquette highlighted by the occasional crunch, courtesy of sesame seeds sprinkled over top. The slightly sweet, slightly tart jam was the perfect accompaniment. These would also be divine with maple syrup, I think. Oh, and mushroom sauce (as Lisa suggests) too, of course.

Quinoa-Oatmeal Croquettes

from Lisa’s Vegetarian Kitchen

Quick, hearty, and substantial, these are the perfect breakfast bites. If you’re in a hurry, you can even wrap them up and take them along. And, as Lisa suggests, they make a great base for a savory sauce, too.

1 cup dry quinoa

1 cup rolled or steel-cut oats (I used rolled oats)

3 cups water

1/4 tsp. sea salt

sesame seeds, as needed

olive oil, as needed

If desired, rinse the quinoa to remove the bitter outer resin (I didn’t bother, as I assume most quinoa these days is pre-rinsed; but if you want to be safe, go ahead). Place quinoa and oats in a glass casserole or pan along with the 3 cups water, cover, and soak overnight in the fridge.

The next day, grease a 9 x 9 inch square pan with olive oil or nonstick spray. Pour the mixture into a medium-sized pot and stir in the sea salt. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent scorching, until it has the consistency of a thick porridge, about 25-30 minutes.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Refrigerate at least 20 minutes, to let the mixture cool and firm up (I left it for about 4 hours). Cut the mixture in to cubes of desired size (I cut the contents of the pan into 20 small cubes).

Lightly oil a frying pan with the olive oil, and fry the cubes on both sides until golden brown and crispy on the outside. Transfer to a plate and serve with fruit preserves of your choice. Makes 4-5 servings. Will keep for 4 days, covered, in the fridge.

Other Posts in this Series:

Lucky Comestible II (1): Quinoa Salad with Buckwheat and Cranberries

Lucky Comestible II (2): Almond-Quinoa Muffins

Lucky Comestible II (3): Tagine of Quinoa with Chickpeas, Olives and Prunes

Lucky Comestible II (5): Apple-Quinoa Cake

Other Quinoa Recipes:

(Got a quinoa recipe? Send me the link during this Lucky Comestible week, and I’ll add it to the list!)

Couldn’t Be Easier Quinoa Casserole courtesy of Shellyfish at Musings from the Fishbowl
Quinoa with Sundried Tomatoes and Corn courtesy of Lisa at Lisa’s Kitchen
Quinoa Soup with Corn courtesy of Lisa at Lisa’s Kitchen
Quinoa Lentil Chili courtesy of Romina at Vegan Eating for One
Not One, But THREE Quinoa Dishes courtesy of Diann at Eat’n Veg’n (I want that breakfast bar recipe!!)
Cheddary Tofu Quinoa Pie courtesy of Jenny Wren at Rabbit Food
Butternut Squash Quinoa courtesy of Karen at Test Drive Kitchen
Beetroot and Quinoa Salad courtesy of Lucy at Nourish Me

Lucky Comestible II (2): Almond-Quinoa Muffins

Well. So. It snowed again yesterday. Actually, it stormed; we got about 5 cm. (2 inches) to add to the–what? 478 cm? 792 cm? 14 kilometers?–pre-existing snow already piled in mini-glaciers beside every driveway, walkway, sidewalk, and garage. And there I was, once again stuck in the house, avoiding the pelting flakes and ice pellets.

I imagine this is what it feels like to live in perma-frost, constantly surrounded by the white stuff with no end in sight. I feel exactly like Captain Robert Scott must have felt on one of his forays to the South Pole, holed up with his companions in his ice-shack as refuge against the elements. Just as he did in his famous diary, I could easily write an entry something like this:

Bitter storms accosted the crew today, forcing the team to head indoors. We huddle by the makeshift fire and attempt to warm our weary, frostbitten hands. Thrashing winds surround us at every turn. All but forsaken in this frigid terrain, we have but each other and the dogs for company. Poor mongrels, even they refuse to venture outdoors in this accursed weather. But tomorrow, if the winds permit, we shall harness them up and commence the hazardous trek anew. . . .

Okay, well, not exactly like Scott, as I’m actually writing on a computer, not by hand with pen and ink on paper in sub-zero weather. Oh, and I’m in a heated brick house in a modern city of 5 million people, not an ice shack. Oh, with electricity. And some organic, vegan spelt cranberry-pumpkin scones and a hot cup of mint tea beside me. And I’m not a couple thousand kilometers from the nearest sign of civilization.

But other than that, just like him.

What this blasted weather stirs up in me (besides the propensity to write like a 19th Century Antarctic explorer) is a longing for breakfast foods. Since my dad worked at his store 6 days a week, he was out of the house by 6:30 AM on Saturday mornings. During the winter, The CFO and I would fend for ourselves at breakfast and let our mom sleep in (once she returned to bed after making breakfast for our father).

Our self-sufficiency wasn’t exactly the most healthful (I seem to recall feasting on saltines, peanut butter, and chocolate milk as we watched Saturday-morning cartoons), but it was comfort food to us. These days, any breakfast fare spells comfort to me; when it’s cold outside, I want to eat pancakes, muffins, scones, omelettes, or even baked oats.

Well, these quinoa muffins, adapted from a recipe in Veganomicon, fit the bill perfectly. Hearty yet slightly sweet, filling yet not too heavy, they are satisfying and sufficient to warm the spirit and the belly. And full of nourishment for energy to brave the elements again, when you’re finally ready to lace up the sled dogs and hit the expedition once more.

(“Um, Mum, you’re not actually thinking of hooking us up to a sled, are you? Because, you know, it’s pretty cold out there, and our paws are rather delicate. . . we really hate getting them all full of ice and snow if we don’t absolutely have to.”)

Almond-Quinoa Muffins

Adapted from Veganomicon

I adapted these by using spelt flour and chopped dates, since I had no apricots on hand. These are dense and pleasantly chewy; the quinoa does make its presence known, however, so beware that you will taste it in the mix. I think these would be outstanding with the suggested apricots as well.

1 cup vanilla soymilk

1 Tbsp. ground flaxseeds

1/4 cup sunflower or other light-tasting oil

1/4 cup agave nectar or pure maple syrup

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup light spelt flour

1/3 cup whole barley flour

1/4 cup almond meal or almond flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. sea salt

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cardamom

1-1/4 cups cooked quinoa

1/2 cup finely chopped dates

Preheat the oven to 350F (180 C) and lightly grease 12 muffins cups, or line with paper liners.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the soymilk and flax; allow to sit for one minute, then whisk in the oil, agave, and vanilla.

In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour, almond meal, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, mixing until just incorporated. Gently fold in the cooked quinoa and the apricots and mix until only the large lumps are gone.

Pour into the prepared muffins tins, filling about 3/4 full, and bake for 20 to 22 minutes until a tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. May be frozen.

Other Posts in this Series:

Lucky Comestible II (1): Quinoa Salad with Buckwheat and Cranberries

Lucky Comestible II (3): Quinoa-Oatmeal Croquettes

Lucky Comestible II (4): Tagine of Quinoa with Chickpeas, Olives and Prunes

Lucky Comestible II (5): Apple Quinoa Cake

Other Quinoa Recipes:

(Got a quinoa recipe? Send me the link during this Lucky Comestible week, and I’ll add it to the list!)

Couldn’t Be Easier Quinoa Casserole courtesy of Shellyfish at Musings from the Fishbowl
Quinoa with Sundried Tomatoes and Corn courtesy of Lisa at Lisa’s Kitchen
Quinoa Soup with Corn courtesy of Lisa at Lisa’s Kitchen
Quinoa Lentil Chili courtesy of Romina at Vegan Eating for One
Not One, But THREE Quinoa Dishes courtesy of Diann at Eat’n Veg’n (I want that breakfast bar recipe!!)
Cheddary Tofu Quinoa Pie courtesy of Jenny Wren at Rabbit Food
Butternut Squash Quinoa courtesy of Karen at Test Drive Kitchen
Beetroot and Quinoa Salad courtesy of Lucy at Nourish Me

Lucky Comestible II: Quinoa Salad with Buckwheat and Cranberries

I remember very clearly the first time I tasted quinoa (pronounced keen-wah): there was I, barely having reached the other side of twenty, at an English Department party at the University of Windsor. As a Teaching Assistant studying toward my MA degree, I had leaped at the chance to attend, not only because this was my very first opportunity to enter the Inner Sanctum of the faculty club, but also because I’d been harboring a raging crush on my Modern American Drama professor and I knew he’d be there.

As it turns out, no, my sophomoric infatuation never made it beyond the fantasy stage; luckily for me, as John later became my beloved mentor, who (along with the wife he adored–drat!) welcomed me into his home, and spent countless hours in serious discussion with me at the local university pub, where I’d regularly spill my dreams, aspirations, academic anxieties and beer; and he’d regularly dispense sage advice, sympathy, pedagogic pointers and beer–for the next two decades or so.

One of the other TAs, a placid, floaty woman (in the way that 1950s housewives on Valium were placid and floaty) brought two dishes to the party buffet table that day: carob brownies (though lacking any gratuitious “hippie” ingredients as you might have found in chocolate brownies of that era, if you get my drift); and a quinoa-veggie salad. I loved both dishes as soon as I tasted them, and resolved immediately to reproduce both in the shoebox kitchen of my bachelor apartment.

The carob brownies were fairly easy to replicate (even though Ms. Floaty refused to give out the exact recipe); it was the quinoa that turned out to be the greater challenge. Most of the ingredients were fairly obvious to the naked eye–celery, green onion, cucumber, tomato. And I could easily approximate a similar oil and vinegar dressing. But what had me stumped was the grain itself, the star of the salad–the quinoa.

Feeling confident that I could maneuver my way around pretty much any grain, I boiled the little cream-colored beads exactly as I would pasta, in an overabundance of fresh water. I should have known there’d be trouble when I attempted to drain the stuff in a colander, only to discover that half or more of the quinoa pearls had fallen through the holes and down the drain. Adding insult to incompetence, when I finally scraped together the remaining 2 tablespoons of the mixture and sampled it for doneness, it unveiled a taste so powerfully bitter that I might have been chewing on a peach pit or a grapefruit peel, with a generous sprinkling of paint chip over top. Not the most auspicious beginning.

From that unpropitious start, however, has developed an ongoing and consistent love of quinoa that persists to this day (much deeper than an undergraduate crush on a literature professor would have been). Quinoa is, by far, my favorite grain, for a plethora of reasons: I love its distinctly mild, slightly nutty flavor; its chewy, almost crunchy texture; its visual impudence–that color-contrasted spiral tail slowly unfurling as the grain cooks, like a loose stitch on your favorite sweater.

Quinoa, like most complex carbohydrates, is a nutritional powerhouse. Besides offering the highest protein content of any grain, this gluten-free gem also provides a nearly complete protein, as it is, unlike other grains, high in the amino acid lysine. (One reason why vegetarians are advised to combine grains with legumes, or grains with nuts/seeds, is to achieve a “complete” combination of all nine essential amino acids.) With lysine in its lineup, quinoa doesn’t require combination with other foods to achieve complete protein status.

A little higher in calories than other grains, quinoa is worth it. According to the World’s Healthiest Foods website (maintained by the venerable George Mateljan Foundation), quinoa also provides important minerals, heart-healthy fiber, and the anti-cancer protection of antioxidants, among other health benefits. It ’s also fairly neutral on the acid-alkaline spectrum, important because most grains lean towards the acidic side, while our blood requires a more alkaline status. In other words, quinoa won’t mess with your body’s acid-alkaline balance the way some other foods (especially those that are processed or high in sugar) might.

If you’ve never tried this versatile and delicious ingredient, you’re in for a treat. Quinoa can be used like oats or rice as the basis of a breakfast cereal, or in side dishes like rice or millet. It can be baked into casseroles, sprinkled into soups, stuffed into peppers or cabbage leaves, or even blended into muffins or breads. And it’s equally delicious hot or cold. My HH was skeptical, at first, but he’s since become a fellow fan of this wonderful food. (“Mum, we’re keen on quinoa, too! We’ll share in it any time. . . . “)

To prepare quinoa, employ the standard ratio of water to grain that you would for rice: two parts water to one part grain. Most instructions will warn that the grain’s exterior houses a naturally bitter resin, which needs to be rinsed carefully to remove before cooking (hence my bitter first encounter; I had no idea I was supposed to rinse it first). However, in today’s marketplace, quinoa is so ubiquitous that manufacturers have begun to pre-rinse it for us. These days, I almost never pre-rinse my quinoa (more because of laziness or forgetfulness than any determination to buck tradition), and it always turns out fine. The stuff I buy in the bulk bins is just as reliable this way as the higher-end products, too.

To achieve a fluffy result (with grains that are clearly separated and well-cooked), I’ve found the best way to cook the quinoa is to first bring the water to a rolling boil before adding the grain; then, lower the heat, cover, and simmer for about 20 minutes before checking the pot (resist the temptation to uncover the pot or to stir the mixture!). If you’re new to quinoa, you might want to combine it with something else the first time; a mix of half quinoa and half rice is always a good option. For a soupier, more porridge-like texture, pour the quinoa directly into the water before you begin to heat it; allow the water to come to the boil with the quinoa already in it, then proceed as above.

I decided to offer this salad recipe first, as it’s always a huge hit at the cooking classes I teach, even with people who’ve never tasted quinoa before. I’ve paired it with buckwheat here; the mild mannered quinoa is a perfect partner to the more robust buckwheat.

Because this recipe contains both cilantro and vegetables, I thought it would be a great submission to Weekend Herb Blogging, the great event created by Kalyn of Kalyn’s Kitchen, this month hosted by Ramona at Houndstooth Gourmet.

Quinoa Salad with Buckwheat and Cranberries

This salad makes a perfect offering to a buffet table, or a nice light supper. The chewy, solid texture of the grains here works well with the slightly spicy, sweet dressing; the salad’s flavors develop even more and the cranberries plump a little by the second day (if it lasts that long). When I first created the recipe I conducted a nutritional analysis and discovered that one serving (about a cup) of this salad offers 12 grams of protein–enough for a substantial main course in anyone’s books.

Salad:

1 cup dry quinoa (rinse if you remember)

1/2 c. dry buckwheat groats (kasha)

3 c. water

1/2 cup chopped walnuts, lightly toasted

1/2 cup dried cranberries or cherries

2 medium stalks celery, chopped

1/4 cup sunflower seeds (toasted or raw)

1/4 cup chopped green onions

1/4 cup chopped parsley or cilantro

Dressing:

2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil

2 Tbsp. flax or hemp oil

3-4 Tbsp. agave nectar

juice of 1/2-1 lemon (to taste)

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground cumin

1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

Pour water into a pot and bring to the boil over high heat. Rinse quinoa well and add to pot with the buckwheat. Reduce heat to low, then cover and simmer without disturbing for 20 minutes. Uncover (all the water should be absorbed) and let sit until cool. Fluff with a fork and turn the quinoa into a large bowl. (Note: for a “cleaner” look, you can boil the grains separately from each other, then combine in a bowl to make the salad).

Add walnuts, dried cranberries, celery, sunflower seeds, scallion, and cilantro and toss to mix.

In a separate bowl, mix together all the dressing ingredients with a whisk. Pour over salad and toss to coat evenly. May be served immediately or covered and refrigerated overnight.

Makes 8-10 servings.

Other posts in this series:

Lucky Comestible II (2): Almond-Quinoa Muffins

Lucky Comestible II (3): Quinoa-Oatmeal Croquettes

Lucky Comestible II (4): Tagine of Quinoa with Chickpeas, Olives and Prunes

Lucky Comestible II (5): Apple Quinoa Cake

Other quinoa recipes:

(Got a quinoa recipe? Send me the link during this Lucky Comestible week, and I’ll add it to the list!)

Couldn’t Be Easier Quinoa Casserole courtesy of Shellyfish at Musings from the Fishbowl

Quinoa with Sundried Tomatoes and Corn courtesy of Lisa at Lisa’s Kitchen

Quinoa Soup with Corn courtesy of Lisa at Lisa’s Kitchen

Quinoa Lentil Chili courtesy of Romina at Vegan Eating for One