You don’t usually find a nutritionally rich food that is equally rich in taste. If it is healthy, it is pretty bland in taste. One of those food items is the infamous Quinoa. This pseudo cereal has lots of health benefits but eating it literally feels like eating the seeds out of a bird feeder (Not that I have tried it but I am assuming it will taste something similar). Hence I have been looking for a good quinoa recipe for a long time to replace rice from my diet and guess what I finally found one. This one is definitely a keeper that has turned a non-quinoa person to a quinoa lover!
My recipe comes from Bethenny Frankel’s daytime show, Bethenny. Here is the link to the recipe. The only thing that I did different to the recipe was replaced parsley with oregano that was because I didn’t have parsley at the time when I was cooking. I think the reason this tastes better than the way I used to cook, is this recipe tells you to soak quinoa in cold water to remove the coat and to toast it to get that nutty flavor. I used to boil the quinoa in water directly and cook it just like cooking rice or kasha but apparently doing that gives it that bitter bland flavor. I now wonder how kasha would taste if I do the same with it. Another thing that is different is, I never use to put tomatoes, garbanzo beans or feta cheese to quinoa. I think all these side ingredients really boosted the taste of the whole salad and gave it that Mediterranean flavor.
I usually make a cup of dry quinoa with lots of grape tomatoes. But once all the ingredients are mixed together, it ends up being a lot. The capacity of the Pyrex bowl in the picture above is 7 cups (1.65liters) and the bowl was pretty full. I like to store it in a tight container and keep it in the fridge. It lasts for days without losing it freshness.
Hope you enjoy the recipe as much as I did!
