Quinoa Pudding

Even in summertime I love a warm dessert. I made this quinoa pudding because I was hankering for something sweet and yummy but wanted to use up some pantry items.

It was so good--sweet and chewy. It really would be a great morning breakfast dish in lieu of oatmeal, but I loved it as a simple dessert. I ate warm it with a little cold milk poured over. Try it!

Quinoa Pudding
serves 8

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
5 cups water
1 tablespoon oat bran
1/4 cup chopped nuts (I used hazelnuts)
1/4 cup raisins
3 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sugar or substitute (I used Whey Low granular)
pinch salt
ground cinnamon (optional)

Bring 1 cup quinoa and 5 cups water to a boil in a large pot; reduce heat and simmer until translucent--about 15 minutes.

See the photo below--this is what quinoa looks like when it's ready.

Drain quinoa well and transfer to a buttered eight-inch baking dish. Stir in oat bran, nuts and raisins.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk, vanilla, sugar and salt; whisk well and pour over quinoa mixture. Sprinkle top with ground cinnamon, if desired.

Bake in a preheated 350*F oven until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Note: If baking at this time of year sends you running, never fear! I actually cooked this in my electric skillet (lid on tightly) set to simmer and it was done in the same time. Yay for countertop appliances! You could also do this in a slow cooker set to low, but that will take a bit longer than 40 minutes.

Christmas Recap

Every year I can't help but be relived when all the holiday hubbub is over. As I look around my house--a disaster of dishes, ribbons and bits of paper, I think about a lovely day now over as a "whew" issues forth from my lips.

Here are some photos:

My brother, the Christmas Warrior

I turned around to get my camera and they devoured the ham

My super-sweet potato casserole

The desserts: A fruited and rum-infused cake, and cuban leche flan

Thundercat discovered that it's possible to climb INTO the Christmas tree

Pickle, decked out in her holiday finery

Mr.W tells Sandy a Christmas story

I will leave you with one recipe that I served yesterday to great raves. This is, by far THE BEST quinoa dish I've made to date.



Broccoli, Quinoa and Bacon
serves 8

3/4 pound bacon, cut up
olive oil
1 medium onion, vertically sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon dried chile flakes
1 pound bag frozen broccoli
salt and pepper to taste
3 cups chicken broth
1 cup quinoa, rinsed

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium-low heat until crispy and drain on paper towels; set aside.

If you want to be good, reserve only two tablespoons of bacon grease and discard the rest, adding a good 1/4 cup olive oil to make up for the grease you just threw out. But if you want to be very, very bad--and I know you do--just keep all the bacon grease and skip the olive oil altogether.

Cook onions until transparent; add garlic, dried chili flakes, salt and pepper and stir (depending on how salty your bacon is, and how much grease you use, be careful with the salt); cook until garlic becomes fragrant, about 1 minute. Add frozen broccoli and toss to coat with onion mixture. Saute five minutes.

Add broth and quinoa; bring to a simmer, cover with a lid or foil and cook until most liquid has been absorbed, about 15 minutes.

To serve, plate broccoli-quinoa mixture covered with cooked bacon.

Risotto Style Barley or Quinoa and Easy Pumpkin Pudding

Another Tuesday, another ladies' luncheon.

I've been reading about risotto a lot. I've never had it or made it--mainly because it calls for arborio rice. And white rice makes my sugar skyrocket! So even though it looks interesting and all taste reports are nothing short of raves, I just could not see myself making or trying it.

Until yesterday.

I ran across a blog that featured Barley made risotto-style with great results. Then I wondered if I could do the same with quinoa--yes, recipes exist! So I knew I was on the verge of an idea.

So this morning I got up early and made two kinds of risotto--one with barley, the other with quinoa, but both with the same other ingredients. My plan was to stuff the risotto fillings into baked acorn squash halves for today's lunch for my five guests and I.

Personally I found the flavor of the barley version much more satisfying. Perhaps it was because of the size of the grain--larger than quinoa, it certainly absorbed much more broth (=flavor), and the texture was very nice. It even seemed creamier.

For dessert, I served a lovely Easy Pumpkin Pudding I concocted very quickly using sugar-free instant pudding as a starting point. What a treat, and delicious, to boot!

All in all, a long morning--but so worth it!

Risotto-Style Barley or Quinoa

As you may already know, risotto doesn't often have much of a recipe per se as a method. It is the method of cooking rather than a rule. So I'll share with you the procedure that I used, along with ingredients, as best as I can.

about 2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon butter

1 large onion, diced

1 pound white button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup barley or quinoa, rinsed well

several cups chicken broth (amount depends on which grain you use; I used a combination of homemade chicken broth and tomato-chicken bullion, with a little red wine tossed in for good measure)

3 cups sliced cooked chicken

1/2 cup milk (I used 2% milk)

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1. In a hot stock pot or dutch oven set over a medium flame, add a good drizzle of olive oil (I'd guess about 2 tablespoons) and butter. Immediately add onion and mushrooms. Stir to coat all veggies with a coating of oil/butter mixture; continue to cook until mushrooms give up their liquid.

2. Stir in garlic and barley or quinoa. Stir until the liquid is absorbed. Ladle in (my ladle is about 1/2 cup volume) more broth and stir until the liquid is absorbed. (Note: I kept a large pot of my broth on a very low flame--just warm, not even a simmer--on a back burner so it was warm when I added it. This is an important step so you don't have to wait as long.) Continue this process of adding broth and stirring until liquid is absorbed until the grains will no longer absorb all of the liquid. You will know when you're getting close to that stage by tasting the grains as you go--when they are almost done, the texture will be al dente.

3. Stir in chicken, milk and parmesan cheese and cover; remove from heat and let rest 5 minutes. At this point, I covered the pan and put it in the oven to hold until lunchtime--but you could finish from here. Serve hot on its own or inside a roasted acorn squash half or any other way you wish.

I must admit that although the presentation was lovely in the acorn squash, the flavors did not blend overly well. Next time I'll skip the squash... but both rosottos were excellent.

Easy Pumpkin Pudding

serves 8

2 boxes (4-serving size) instant pudding mix (I used sugar free vanilla--butterscotch is perfect for this recipe, too) -- Prepare with milk according to package directions FOR PIE

1 15-ounce can solid pack pumpkin

cinnamon and nutmeg to taste

Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate overnight. Serve in pretty glasses topped with whipped cream or--like I did--a wee bit of sugar-free non-dairy hazlenut creamer. Mmm!

Quinoa Stuffed Winter Squash

Every Tuesday I host a ladies' lunch in my home. Many of the ladies have dietary restrictions, so I try to prepare low fat, low glycemic-index meals to share.

Yesterday I had a three-and-a-half pound hubbard squash just calling to be cooked. Now I've never even had hubbard squash, so this was a true mission into the unknown. But I heard it's the king of all squash--so that was promising.

I adapted a favorite stuffing recipe. Now that I no longer indulge in bread, I try to replace bread with other healthy grains. And quinoa is one of my new favorites! So it was natural to use quinoa instead of cubed bread for this stuffing.

Here is the hubbard squash, already stuffed, but before roasting.


Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the cooked, stuffed hubby; however since the recipe made more stuffing than would fit in the cavity of the hubbard squash, I sliced open a butternut squash, as well. Here's a picture of that.

Winter Squash with Quinoa and Sausage Stuffing

1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth/stock
1 cup water
winter squash (I used a 3.5 lb hubbard squash plus one 3 lb butternut squash)
1 1/2 lb sweet italian sausage, casings removed (I used low fat sweet pork sausage because I had it on hand, and added some red pepper flake to spice it up... but it would be good with hot sausage, too.)
2 tablespoons butter
1 med. onion, diced
1/2 cup dry white wine or stock of choice
1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth/stock
1 medium tart apple, peeled, cored & diced (I used MacIntosh)
1/4 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup chopped dates
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Place first three ingredients in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until water is absorbed (10-15 minutes). When done, grains will be translucent and the outer germ layer will separate. Makes 3 cups cooked. Set aside.

Split or otherwise open winter squash. (For the hubbard squash, I cut a lid out of the top. For the butternut, I split it down the middle.) Remove seeds and strings.

Cook crumbled sausage in a large skillet in olive oil until cooked through. Remove sausage. Melt butter in skillet; add onion and saute until soft and transparent.

Add wine, broth, apples, dried cranberries, dates, salt and pepper, cooked sausage. Stir until combined; simmer over low heat for 10-15 minutes to allow flavors to marry. Stir in prepared quinoa and remove from heat. Let stand 10-15 minutes. Quinoa will absorb remaining liquid.

Brush interior and cut sides of squash with melted butter. Sprinkle with additional salt and pepper, if desired. Scoop quinoa-sausage mixture into squash cavity. I spooned stuffing into my hubbard squash and replaced the lid, put in a baking dish and added about ½ cup water in the bottom of the pan. For the butternut squash, I filled the cavity and piled additional stuffing over the rest of the squash on the cookie sheet, added some water to the bottom of the pan, and covered with foil to bake. Bake at 350 degrees until tender, about 2 hours. Serve hot.

Serves 8.


My guests loved it--as did I! Here's an 'after' photo:



From the carnage you can see that we devoured the hubbard--and that we're not shy about eating! This was a perfect autumn meal. It would be wonderful as a Thanksgiving side dish... especially if you prefer to roast your turkey unstuffed, a stuffed squash is a real treat!


Warm, squashy greetings from my home to yours,
Mrs.W