Day 13: Quinoa, Anyone?

In a nod to our epicurean explorations from last time, we decided that we were going to try cooking with a new ingredient to see if we could add it into our rotation. Despite heavy protests, Cole insisted on buying a 10 pound bag of quinoa from Costco (Cole: "It was only $12."). Since he wouldn't listen to me, we had to figure out what to do with it.

We enlisted the help of many friends and internet searches and narrowed it down to three contenders: Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers (thanks Andrea), Quinoa Fried Rice (thanks Chanty), and Quinoa salad (thanks Kate). Feeling ambitious, Cole tackled all three so that we would have some options to choose from.  

Starting with the salad, we mixed together chopped red pepper, sautéed onion, ginger, garlic, vinegar sauce, chopped scallions, and some roughly chopped peanuts with the quinoa for our appetizer.  

Cole prepped an all-vegetarian stuffed bell pepper for us, which was not okay with me; so I went to the store to pick up some ground beef to mix in with it. Beyond the beef and quinoa we added some more chopped scallions, pinto beans, and some chopped tomatoes for a hearty stuffing.  

The fried rice quinoa was a familiar recipe, but we substituted the rice for quinoa. Starting with some hot oil, we heated some mashed garlic and ginger until fragrant, before throwing the grain into the dish. Adding some egg and soy sauce, we were mostly there. To finish the dish we mixed in peas and shrimp.

Quinoa... it looks pretty

At the end of this experiment, I am still not a fan of quinoa. The stuffed pepper was fine, but we have to work on the other dishes. The fried quinoa was... mushy. And without a protein in the salad, I couldn't really get myself to come around and like it. Cole loved the stuffed pepper and salad, but we were in agreement with the fried quinoa.  

It was only a matter of time before we tried something I hands-down didn't like. At least Cole has something to cook when I'm not home (since I won't let him shop for anything else until the quinoa is gone).