Tag: quinoa

How Long Does It Take To Cook Quinoa in a Glorious One-Pot Meal?

January 23, 2014

Reader question: I came to the Book Signing at The Bookworm in Edwards. I would like to sign up for MRT testing, and also have a recipe question – I am cooking lots of veggies and quinoa in a 5.5 qt dutch oven for tonight. No meat. Do I really cook them for an hour? ~Lorie, Colorado

A Glorious One-Pot Meals book signing at The Bookworm in Edwards, CO on 1-20-2014.

Thanks for coming to the book signing, Lorie! I’m always happy to talk about MRT food sensitivity testing and will contact you directly to schedule a free initial phone consultation.

As for the question about how long to cook just veggies and quinoa using the Glorious One-Pot Meal method, the main thing to remember is that dry goods including dry quinoa will always take the full amount of time to cook regardless of if the rest of the meal includes meat or not.

If you are using a 5.5-quart Dutch oven but you are only cooking for 2 people, then use the amount of quinoa (3/4 cup) and liquid (1 cup) called for on page 9 in the common measurements section and plan on around 45 minutes of cooking time.

If you are using a 5.5-quart Dutch oven and cooking for 5-6 people and filling the pot to the brim with vegetables along with three times the amount of quinoa and liquid, then it will indeed take about an hour to cook.

Remember, too, that you will always know when your Glorious One-Pot Meal is ready because the aroma of a fully-cooked meal will escape your oven and waft through your house.

Happy cooking!

Worldwide Demand for Quinoa Up Threefold

February 22, 2013

Quinoa (pronounced “keen-wah”), the mother grain of the Incas, has become the darling of the foodie and health-nut world.

quinoa farmer — Farmer Geronimo Blanco shows his quinoa plants in Patamanta, Bolivia. (Juan Karita, The Associated Press)

Deliciously nutty, quinoa is the only grain that is a complete protein, perhaps because it’s more of a seed than an actual grain, even though we use it like a grain. Naturally gluten-free, quinoa flour offers an alternative to wheat in baking, and quinoa products like pasta can be found on supermarket shelves.

I love quinoa and often cook it for dinner in place of rice. You can basically add water to dry quinoa and cook it as if it were rice, or put it in a Glorious One-Pot Meal for an easy and healthy repast. Quinoa flakes can be eaten as a quick hot cereal, but I like to use them in place of bread crumbs in recipes like these gluten-free salmon burgers.

One unfortunate side effect of quinoa’s rising popularity is the stress it is putting on traditional farmers in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia to abandon ancient land management technique in hopes of harvesting more and more quinoa for the booming market. Quinoa has become a cash crop in the fragile ecosystem of the Andean highlands.

I hope they find a solution to meet demand without destroying part of our world and making quinoa and the Andean highlands a casualty of modern commerce.

Black eyed peas

September 17, 2008

I couldn’t resist picking up a pound of black eyed peas at the farmers market the other day. Only problem was that I didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

I emailed a girlfriend who had once made a delicious black eyed pea New Year’s dish from a recipe she had found in one of

Mollie Katzen’s cookbooks, Sundays At Moosewood, I think. But, I didn’t hear back from her and my peas were begging to be used. So I decided to wing it and make something up with what I had on hand.

I started by sauteeing chopped garlic in olive oil. Then I put in the shelled peas, a can of diced tomatoes, and a can of chopped mild green chiles. A little sea salt while it simmered for ten minutes or so, and when the peas were softer I spooned it over quinoa and served it with grilled chicken coated in barbecue sauce.

It wasn’t quite like Mollie Katzen’s black eyed pea recipe I remembered, but the whole family loved it. A variation on this will likely show up somewhere as a Glorious One-Pot Meal, since you could easily replicate this wholesome and balanced meal with the GOPM method. Alas, it’s too late to make it into the next book, Glorious One-Pot Meals: A RevolutionaryNew Quick and Healthy Approach to Dutch-Oven Cooking (due out January 6th!), but it’s going into my files for sure.

Tag: quinoa

How Long Does It Take To Cook Quinoa in a Glorious One-Pot Meal?

Worldwide Demand for Quinoa Up Threefold

Black eyed peas

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