Me and my Quinoa

For the second time in a week, I tried a new food item. First it was eggplant and today I stretched my boundaries with quinoa. Quinoa is a seed that has its roots (pun intended) in Incan history. It is about the size of a BB if that BB lost two thirds of its mass. This is a tiny little seed. I was not sure how much I needed so I bought about two cups of the stuff. I picked up the recipe for fixing quinoa from the www.livestrong.com web site. I put my "Kiss the Cook" apron on and read the recipe. It is rather complicated,, one cup of seeds, two cups of water, microwave it for 15 minutes. I took the apron off. What the recipe does not tell you is that these little seeds swell up, the water disappears and you end up with enough quinoa to feed a small pre-Columbian Andean village. I had more than enough; unfortunately, no one was interested in stretching their boundaries so it was all mine. I added some agave nectar to the quinoa and was feeling very Incan-ish. I give the quinoa / agave a four on the four spoon scale. Good stuff, so give it a try.

One word of caution, After (key word here is AFTER) I ate the quinoa, I read more about this seed and it's nutrition value. In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinoa under the heading of Preparation is a section about, well, preparing quinoa. First step is to remove the saponins. Them damned old saponins. And I quote "Removal of the saponin helps with digestion; the soapy nature of the compound makes it act as a laxative." And then Wikipedia informs me that most boxed quinoa has been pre-rinsed for convenience so you do not have to worry about saponins. Good news? No! This is bad news because I bought it from the bulk containers. So, I have no idea what to expect because,, oops,, gotta go!!