This morning I tried cooking quinoa (pronounced Keen-wah) porridge for the first time after seeing a really tempting blog post on the Anytime Health website. Take a look at the article, How to prepare quinoa by Lee Hersh and you’ll see the mouthwatering picture of her breakfast quinoa porridge.
Lee also writes a blog called Fit Foodie Finds; you’ll notice Lee’s is an american recipe with cups as measurments, stevia sugar and chia seeds, which I haven’t heard of in the UK before. Stevia is a natural herb sweetner and chia seeds are a bit of a super food and promote weight loss, lower blood presure etc. I didn’t have either of these ingredients in the cupboard so I’ve created a twist on this recipe with mesquite flour and sweet freedom fruit sugar.
Quinoa cooks pretty much like porridge with a two liquid to one quinoa ratio and works equally well with milk as it does with water. It does take a little longer to cook than normal porridge with oats though so allow yourself extra time if you’re making this for breakfast.
Quinoa Porridge with apples, raisins and mequite flour
You can vary this recipe to your own tastes, use cinnamon if you don’t have mequite flour or honey or sugar instead of sweet freedom. I think oat milk and coconut milk will work just as well and can’t wait to try that tomorrow. You could add half a banana sliced and quartered or pear would also work well.
Ingredients (serves 2)
- 1 cup rice milk (You could use coconut milk, almond milk, oat, soya milk etc. depending on your preferences and allergies)
- 1/2 cup dry quinoa, rinsed
- 1/2 tsp. mesquite flour
- 1 tsp. brown sugar or 1 tbsp of sweet freedom
- 1 medium apple, finely diced
- dash of salt
- 2 tbsp. raisins, rinsed
How to make the porridge
- In a small pan, heat the milk until boiling.
- Lower the heat to a simmer, add the quinoa and cook for 5 minutes
- Add all the other ingredients, and simmer for a further 10 minutes or until the quinoa is cooked. It should be soft and creamy in texture and not hard to the bite.
Check out this blog for tips on How do you cook quinoa.
So, what did you have for breakfast? Why not try this with a handful of oats added about five minutes before the end?
What a lovely idea, Ruth. I do enjoy millet porridge and hadn’t thought to add mesquite flour.
I’ve only been naughty with mine and made cookies out of it!
Charlotte : )
Thanks Charlotte! I see another of your recipes has been put to good use by Alex making Chrimble cookies here: http://foodallergyandintolerance.blogspot.com/2011/12/spicy-mesquite-chrimbo-chocookies.html
Great to see that, thanks for the link, Ruth!
Charlotte : )
Sounds yum. Is it just me, though, or does it resemble frog spawn!? Sorry Ruth, I was never any good at Semolina type stuff either! Useful recipe, though, thanks.
Frog Spawn? Micky! I know what you mean though – textures etc. can put you off things. I prefer to think of it as tiny little flying saucers when they’ve popped open. I think it needs something else with it so am experimenting with this. Oats added close the end of the quinoa cooking time would work (as long as gluten free).