quinoa Archives - Pechluck's Food Adventures

Harvest Quinoa with Apple and Walnuts

As my next dish as I count down to Thanksgiving, I made this meal this past weekend to celebrate fall flavors. And it only takes one pot and one pan! While you are making the quinoa, you can essentially finish off the rest of the stuff and just mix together- or do everything but the apple and fresh sage which you can add while re-heating the rest. You can also serve it cold too! It’s a great vegetarian (and gluten-free) option instead of stuffing, but also is a great side dish for any entree. I filled a 2 1/2 quart dish with this, so can serve a nice group!

This dish is inspired by the Webicurean’s Harvest Rice with Apples and Pecans, but I changed out the rice for quinoa and swapped pecans for walnuts (basically because F ate all the pecans so all I had were walnuts)! I also really upped the amount of apple, and added sage. If you’d like, you can throw in some extra brightness with cranberries, or pomegranate seeds, etc. I mention walnuts or pecans, but hazelnuts would work, or you could roast some chestnuts to add a more earthy base, and/or add celery with the onions for crunch.

Recipe for a Thanksgiving that is vegetarian and gluten-free: sub stuffing with Harvest Quinoa with Apple and Walnuts

This is the second of a series of posts of recipes I am going to cover on dishes to consider for Thanksgiving! They will all be vegetarian, so you might consider it for a side dish or if you have a vegetarian at your table like I do, be a way to provide something more hearty than the usual sides of rolls, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Check out my Recipes Index page for other dishes that I have covered in the past.

Harvest Quinoa with Apple and Walnuts

Recipe for a Thanksgiving that is vegetarian and gluten-free: sub stuffing with Harvest Quinoa with Apple and Walnuts

Ingredients::

2 1/2 cups broth – for my purposes I used vegetarian broth
2 cups quinoa – or you can choose to use wild rice if you’d like
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts or whatever nut you’d like
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion (approximately 1/2 an onion)
3 cups chopped granny smith or any kind of apple- sweet, or tart, or mix up both?! (approximately 2 apples)
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt and Pepper to taste
1 tablespoon of fresh chopped sage (optional)

Directions:

In a large pot, bring broth to a boil. Add quinoa and salt and simmer for 40-45 minutes, or until done per whatever package might instruct (I like TruRoots quinoa because it is organic, gluten-free, and . The one I used is from Costco and is a sprouted wild rice, brown rice and red rice and quinoa blend. Besides being good for you and tasty, their Enray Foundation works to educate and invest with quinoa growers in Bolivia. I am going to ignore the debate that because quinoa is in demand that the global economy is pricing South Americans out of eating it themselves because it’s such a good living – quinoa is hard to grow and perfect for their environment. At least the foundation helps make sure that this new boom in agriculture does not come at the price of their ecosystem. The idea of driving down the price of quinoa by us eating less to drive down demand so they can eat it but then they have less financial and economic growth sounds idiotic to me. Ok, off the soapbox.)
Anyway, while the quinoa is in progress, in a pan, melt the butter, then sauté the nuts in the butter until the nuts are golden brown. Remove your warm, golden brown nuts from the pan and set aside. Don’t turn your back on them because you don’t want burnt nuts!
In the same pan, add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, and sauté the chopped onion until the onions are translucent. Remove and set aside.
In the same pan, add the last tablespoon of the olive oil and sauté the cut apple. Sprinkle with nutmeg, salt and pepper.
When the quinoa is done, stir in the apple/onion mixture as well as the nuts and the tablespoon of fresh chopped sage.

Recipe for a Thanksgiving that is vegetarian and gluten-free: sub stuffing with Harvest Quinoa with Apple and Walnuts

Summary of the Vegetarian Thanksgiving Sides Series 2013:

Thanks for reading!

Potluck Dish: Quinoa with Roasted Cauliflower and Mushrooms

Attending a neighborhood potluck/bbq earlier this month, I signed up for a vegetarian main dish that could feed the possibly 24 people who had signed up as a yes. The potluck/bbq was occurring on a Thursday evening, a night which I also have a regular scheduled call with someone at work in India after my normal full work day, so I wanted something that was very easy to prepare. I love sharing food to entertain, but mentally I just haven’t wanted to “cook” as much and seem to keep picking recipes that are more prep heavy than on cooking execution. This is pretty much why you never see any dessert recipes- I am NOT a baker. I always admire the photos and how beautiful they are, and then my eyes glaze over when it comes to the recipe portion, much less the directions. Heh heh, glaze…

At the same time of wanting something easy to make, I wanted it also be healthy, as well as satiating since I was unsure there would be enough hearty filling food for those who are vegetarian. Besides, all omnivores can always eat a vegetarian dish: it’s a win win for everyone. I had a few options to choose from, and then let F select the final dish. This recipe for quinoa with roasted cauliflower and mushrooms was the winner.

Quinoa with Roasted Cauliflower and Mushrooms

I quadrupled up on the Quinoa with Roasted Cauliflower and Mushrooms recipe in order to make enough, and when I brought it back there was probably only enough for two servings left! The original recipe makes enough for 4-6 depending on whether it’s a main or side, and what you see below is what I used to make enough for a crowd at a potluck. This is a very adaptable recipe based on your own tastes and preferences.

Quinoa with Roasted Cauliflower and Mushrooms

Weather-wise, it was one of the few days this summer where we have had rain in Portland, and it was because of that a little bit cool, so I thought having the dish hot (it could be served cold as well) was the way to go. The leftovers were great the next day, and even the next day after that, just eaten cold straight from the refrigerator!

Ingredients:

2 cups of Quinoa, or a Sprouted rice and quinoa blend like I used that included sprouted brown and red rice, quinoa, and wild rice from truRoots
1 1/2 to 1 3/4 stock or water- see directions on your quinoa
2 heads of cauliflower
16 ounces mushrooms
4 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoon thyme
2 tablespoon rubbed sage
2 tablespoon dill weed
2 tablespoon coriander
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
Optional: sprinkles of Parmesan
Greens of your choice- I used radish sprouts, but you can bed the entire thing on top of sauteed or fresh spinach, kale, lettuce, etc!

Directions:

Heat up a vegetable stock: the amount depend son your quinoa so check your package: mine uses 1 3/4 cups liquid for every cup of quinoa. I prefer to use vegetable stock to impart flavor- other options might be to use water, or water with added flavorings like tomato paste. Rinse the quinoa. When the vegetable stock is boiling, add the quinoa and cover, lowering the heat or whatever the instructions are for your quinoa or quinoa/rice. This part can be prepared beforehand if you wish. I did this step the evening before, and then after the quinoa was done, I put it in the serving container and put in the refrigerator overnight. It’s one of the great things about quinoa- besides being healthy, you can easily prepare a cup or two that you can utilize to add to dishes all week!
When you are preparing to roast, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Put aluminum foil on two baking sheets in order to make cleanup easier, and then put the baking sheets in the oven during the preheating.
While the oven is heating up, cut the cauliflower into florets. Also slice the mushrooms. You want to try to have flat surfaces to it can lie flat on the pans in one layer. In a large mixing bowl (I had to use two), put mix the cauliflower and mushrooms with the olive oil and seasonings from above. If you are using two mixing bowls like I did, obviously you split 1 tablespoon in one bowl and 1 in the other in terms of the oil and seasonings. You can use any combination of seasonings you would like to your taste, or keep it simple with salt and pepper. Roasting the cauliflower makes it tender and you get lots of caramelized edges, so it will be guaranteed good flavor already! Mix everything well with your clean hands.
Once you are ready, take out the hot pans and place the mixed cauliflower and mushrooms on top so they are arranged in one flat even layer. Roast in the oven for 30-45 minutes: however long it takes until they get tender and golden brown. Make sure that halfway you turn them over to evenly brown them. If you’d like, during that turn you can add more flavor by sprinkling in the lemon juice, and also parmesan. I went with just lemon juice.
When they cauliflower and mushrooms are done, add them on top of your hot or cold quinoa. I used radish sprouts that I mixed in throughout, and I used an amount that gave a greater ratio to the cauliflower and mushrooms and quinoa so it was more a hearty dish than a salad. But you can salad this up as well by adding the greens of your chocie! Or, leave the greens out and it could easily be a main course also!