Quinoa Patties

Have any of you cooked with quinoa before? It is pronounced "key-nwa". According to the ever trusty Wikipedia, quinoa is a species of goosefoot, and it is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a chenopod, which makes it closely related to species such as beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds. Sounds like a strange little thing! Nutrition-wise, quiona grains contain "essential amino acids like lysine and good quantities of calcium, phosphorous and iron".

You can buy quinoa at the grocery store, and I found it in the natural section of my local store. It is really important to thoroughly rinse the quinoa before cooking in order to remove the "saponins" from the surface. This is a natural coating that has a bitter, soap-like taste. Saponins are thought to be a natural way to deter birds from eating the grain. After the rinsing it is cooked just like rice, but much faster! Submerge in water (1 cup quinoa to 2 cups water) and bring to a boil. Then reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes - voila! Versatile quinoa ready to go.

My mom had told me about a quinoa recipe she wanted to make that she saw on the Food Network - made by Aarti Sequeria. This recipe was the reason that I bought the quinoa this week --> recipe. However, I made some extra so I knew that I needed to find some other ways to use it this week.

I went to the world wide web for inspiration. :)

Found a great website...cookingquinoa. On the website I came across some Quinoa Fritters that I knew I had to modify and try out. Sorry that I didn't do full step by step pictures, but I'll still give you some detailed instructions! And I have to apologize in advance, these are far from the best food photos I've taken - but I was hungry and it was sort of an afterthought to do the post on this! Thanks for understanding ;-)

Ingredients:

- 1 cup cooked quinoa

- ½-3/4 c. whole wheat flour

- ½ c. spinach puree-

- ½ c. cauliflower puree

- ½ c. diced onion

- 2 garlic gloves minced

- 2 eggs

- 1.5 tsp salt

- 1 tsp pepper

- Canola oil (enough to coat bottom of pan)

Okay.... This is what freshly cooked quinoa looks like:

Allow the quinoa to cool before proceeding. Then add in all ingredients except for the eggs. Doesn't that look appetizing? haha Don't worry... stay with me and it will be worth it!

Have any of you heard of Double Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld? Great cookbook I got from my Mom. Anyways, she uses vegetable purees in her food to add extra nutrients. I had made the spinach and cauliflower purees and stuck them in my freezer - seemed like a great time to pull them out and add some extra goodness to my quinoa. I just defrosted the bags of each in warm water - I place 1/2 cup of puree into each ziploc. [To make the purees - steam the vegetable, place in a blender or food processor and mix. Add a tablespoon of water as necessary to help smooth. Then separate into 1/2 c. servings in ziplocs, and freeze until you need to use!]

So into the bowl I added cauliflower, spinach, whole wheat flour, onion, garlic and salt and pepper.

Then I put the two eggs into a small bowl and whipped up, and then added to the other ingredients. Combine all. You may need to add a little extra quinoa or whole wheat flour if your mixture is too loose - play around with it.

Heat your pan over medium heat and add your oil in. We don't want to ruin this healthy creation by deep-frying it, so only use what you need to coat the bottom of the pan. Once heated, form patties with your hands out of the mixture and place directly in the pan. These babies will cook quickly, so keep an eye on them.

I want to say maybe 2 minutes on each side - just let them get a nice golden brown, then flip. Brown the other side and then remove to a plate. Repeat with the remaining mixture. This is the final product:

Trust me, I realize that this is not the prettiest thing you've ever eaten...but wow, the flavor was fantastic! If you would like to have a patty/fritter that is not quite so green, than you can choose to use chopped up spinach instead. Then you will have green flecks of color instead of a green base color. I am by no means a vegetarian, but I definitely was not missing the meat in this dish - it was delicious. You could easily put this between two slices of bread, add some arugula and tomato slices and treat it like a veggie burger! Seriously good eats, and pretty guilt-free, too! Overall, once the quinoa was cooked it took maybe 15 minutes to whip these little treats up!

Go buy some quinoa this week! Have a good week everybody, can't believe we're only one week away from August.

Mary