How to Cook Quinoa & More - All in Pictures

Quinoa (pronounced "keen-wah") has very quickly become one of my favorite...seeds. Yah, right away, that's one of the things that makes it stand out. Because it's not a member of the true grass family, like wheat, barley, rye and other grass grains, quinoa, which comes in white, red and back color variations, is really a seed, and it's actually the seed of the goosefoot plant. 

Goosefoot gets its name from the shape of its leaves and is a relative of spinach and Swiss chard. Quinoa grows in the South American Andes Mountains, mostly in Chile, Peru and Boliva, where it’s been cultivated for over 5000 years. History has it that Incan armies sustained themselves on long marches by eating quinoa mixed with fat that they called “war balls”. Yes indeed, EMMMMM… Actually, after what I’ve recently learned about fat and how good a lot of it is for us, those “war balls” sound pretty interesting.

As you’d probably expect from a relative of spinach and Swiss chard, both exceptionally nutritious leafy greens, quinoa also packs a potent nutritional punch. It has about twice the protein content of barley, corn and rice. Quinoa is gluten free and easily absorbed by the body. It’s a good source of manganese, magnesium, iron, copper & phosphorous making it particularly noteworthy for people affected by migraine headaches, diabetes and atherosclerosis. It’s also exceptionally high in dietary fiber and is rich in "good" unsaturated fats like Omega-3. The numbers you see above I got by Googling "quinoa nutrition".

My favorite way to prepare quinoa is to make a batch with what you see below that yields about 2 ½ - 3 cups cooked quinoa in the end.  I then put the lion's share of what's left over in a sealed container in the fridge, where it keeps just fine for at least a week, and then use it as I need it. Click this link for a complete, easy to follow step-by-step picture book recipe.