Posts tagged quinoa
Fast food my way – Grilled tuna steak on brussels sprouts quinoa and roasted bell pepper relish
Dec 22nd
Fast food à ma façon – Steak de thon grillé, vinaigrette aux poivrons grillés et roquette avec quinoa aux choux de Bruxelles
This is a recipe for those days you want to eat well and not spend a whole day in the kitchen. I can almost call this a fast food meal, and anything I classified in my “less than 30 minutes” category can be called “fast food”, now 30 minutes is fast to me, of course comparing to some frozen meal you throw in the microwave, might not be. Of course everything is subjective. But since we are comparing this to homemade meals, and nothing else, this is definitely fast food.
You can substitute tuna with any other white fish, and quinoa with rice, but quinoa being very nutritious, it’s always good to add it into a regular diet.
Lately, I have been using brussel sprouts mainly shredded mixed with other vegetables and I really like them this way. It’s one way among others to prepare them. If you serve them whole as a side dish, may people tend to be reluctant and un-excited to eat them. Shredding them, make their flavor more subtle and friendlier and less intimidating to certain people.
Ingredients for 4
For the tuna
- 4 tuna steaks
- 1 small green bell pepper
- 1 small red bell pepper
- 1/4 red onion, finely chopped
- 2 scallions, chopped
- 1tsp chives, chopped
- 3 tbs olive oil
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1 tsp tabasco sauce
- one pinch of cayenne pepper
- salt and pepper
For the quinoa
- 1 cup quinoa
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 1/2 onion finely sliced
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 3/4 lb brussel sprouts, shredded
- about 12 cherry tomatoes, cut in half lenghtwise
- smoked paprika
- salt and pepper
Preparation
For the relish
Broil peppers under broiler on all sides until the skin darkens. Remove from oven, let them cool, then remove seeds and peel. Cut in small cubes. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.
For the quinoa
Steam quinoa in a medium size pot with vegetable broth for about 20 minutes. Heat olive oil in a pan, brown onions. Add tomatoes and garlic and stir for a few minutes. Then add shredded brussel sprouts. Mix well to combine all ingredients, then add paprika, salt and pepper. Cover with a lid and let it cook for about 10 minutes, until sprouts are tender but still green and with a tiny crunch. When quinoa is cooked, add to the pan. Mix well for a few minutes to combine all ingredients.
Grill tuna steak on a skillet, Add salt and pepper and serve with two tbs relish on top and quinoa on the side.
For lazy days – Quinoa, grilled zucchini, chickpeas en verrine with almond pesto and goat cheese
Dec 7th
Pour les jours paresseux – Quinoa, courgettes grillées, pois chiches en verrine en couches de chèvre et pesto
Yes, this is definitely a dish for one of those lazy days, not lazy “like sitting on the sofa”, but lazy “like not feeling to cook” but with a desire to eat something good.
After waiting for a while after for people all day, first to come check out some windows for replacement (and not showing up), for phone calls unreturned, you get into a strange mood and wondering what is wrong. Is it the muggy weather? Is there something up in the air that makes people unreliable? I have no idea. I guess some days are just like that. Well so for one of those days, this is the perfect little thing to do, that will not leave your kitchen messy.
Verrines have been quite popular in France, you just fill them with whatever you like for a fun presentation. Basically, the glass is filled with layers of quinoa, pesto, goat cheese. It can be served lukewarm or cold as a salad or appetizer.
Ingredients for 4
- 250 g quinoa
- vegetable broth
- 6 tbs chick peas (soaked in water or canned)
- 3 zucchini, sliced crosswise
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 4 tbs goat cheese
For the pesto
- 70 g peeled almonds
- 1 garlic clove
- 40 g parmigiano Reggiano, grated
- 50 g basil
- zest of 1 lemon
- salt and pepper
Preparation
Steam quinoa in vegetable broth by adding enough broth to cover the quinoa by 1/2 inch. Bring broth to a boil, then cover with a lid and reduce heat to the minimum. Cook for about 20 minutes or until the quinoa has absorbed all the liquid. The other and quicker alternative is to cook quinoa in a rice cooker. When quinoa is cooked remove pot from the heat and let it cool a little.
Add chick peas to the quinoa and mix well. Grill zucchini in a grill pan and add to the quinoa-chick pea mixture. Add lemon juice, drizzle with olive oil and adjust with salt and pepper.
For the pesto, combine all ingredients together in a mixer to obtain a semi fine paste.
In a glass, add one layer of quinoa, add a layer of pesto, then a layer of goat cheese. Start over with a layer of quinoa. Top it off with some goat cheese, a slice of grilled zucchini and a basil leaf.
Lilou's gourmande galette – Quinoa galette with bell peppers, mushrooms and mint – Leek cream
Mar 24th
La galette gourmande de Lilou- Galette de quinoa aux poivrons, champignons et menthe, crème de poireaux
Feeling like quinoa? after quinoa salads, I wanted something cakey but savory…My baby parrotlet Lilou ate all of the quinoa I made last Saturday, he loves quinoa and barley so now we share the same meals. There is always an extra portion for Lilou – Seems like quinoa is a bird seed along with millet but I do love bird seeds.
This particular parrotlet loves when I cook, he is so curious and intrigued to the point that when I chop vegetables, he gets so excited, he flies from his cage into the kitchen and starts chirping; just adorable.
I had a quinoa galette a few years ago in Paris at “La Maison du Danemark” on the Champs Elysées, a quite famous fish and seafood restaurant serving a Danish contemporary cuisine with an elegant touch and once in a while when preparing quinoa, I think about that galette.
With years going by, I really don’t remember what was in the galette, it seemed plain, I just felt like turning those cute seeds into something solid to bite on. After all, galettes are delicious, you don’t need to add too many ingredients into the mixture, you just enhance them with a coulis or a cream of vegetables like this one.
Dans le même esprit (in the same style), I made millet galettes a while ago, that are a derivative of those, so you can just play around with the ingredients and have fun. I used almond flour to thicken the batter and it added a pleasant nutty flavor. I like to steam quinoa, like I would do for steam rice, and usually I use 2 doses of water for one dose of quinoa.
Ingredients for 3-4 galettes
For the quinoa galettes
- 2 cups cooked quinoa (or 1 cup uncooked)
- 1/2 orange bell pepper, finely diced
- 4 cremini mushrooms, chopped
- 2 eggs
- 3 tbs almond flour
- 1 tbs mint, chopped
- salt and pepper
For the cream of leeks
- 1 large leek, chopped
- 1/2 cup vegetable broth
- 1 tbs crème fraîche or heavy cream
- salt and pepper
Preparation
Cook quinoa in a pot covered with twice its quantity of water. Cover with a lid and cook slowly until the water has been absorbed.
Heat olive oil in a pan, brown onions, then add mushrooms and bel pepper. Adjust with salt and pepper. Cover with a lid and let it cook until the vegetables are tender but still firm. Remove from heat and add to the quinoa.
Add eggs and almond flour, mix well. Add mint and adjust with salt and pepper. At this point, the mixture will be thick but still smooth.
Place in silicon molds of about 10 cm diameter or greased ramequins. I love silicon molds because the food doesn’t stick and cooks quickly. Cook in a pre-heated oven at 370F for about 20 minutes.
While the galettes are cooking, prepare the cream of leeks. In a pan, heat olive oil then add leeks. Stir for about 3 minutes, then add broth, salt and pepper. Cover and let it cook until the leeks are tender, about 20 minutes. Add cream and stir well, cook for another additional 5 minutes.
Blend in a mixer, and if the sauce is too thick add more broth.
Serve each galette with a few spoonful of leek cream around.
It's warm, it's flavorful, it's a salad – Warm quinoa salad, with cannelli beans, carrots and cauliflower with a four herb salsa
Jul 25th
C’est tiède, c’est plein de saveur, c’est une salade – Salade tiède de quinoa aux carottes, cocos, chou fleur et salsa aux quatres herbes
Today I said goodbye to my long time and faithful friend, my VW Golf I had for over 10 years, and that over the years turned into an old lady. I gave it to a charity and I have to admit that when the tow-truck came pick it up, I was somehow sad. I know it’s just a thing, and I should not get attached to material, but still, it was the first car I got in the US and I was somehow attached to it. We went through some good and bad times together. I did not feel comfortable selling it, since the steering wheel was really hard to manoeuvre and I stopped driving it for a month, fearing it would break down in the middle of the street…and many other things were wrong with it, so I figured I would give it to charity. C’est la vie, nothing lasts and things like people sooner or later quietly go.
OK, let’s not dwell on this, it’s just a car after all!
Let’s go back to the fun world of cooking, I love to play with quinoa, it’s delicious in soups, salads, taboule and any kind of side dishes. The great flavor comes from the herb salsa I made, which enhanced this whole salad.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup quinoa
- 1/2 cauliflower
- 2 carrots
- 1 cup cooked cannelli beans
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 celeri stick
- 3 cloves
For the salsa
- 2 scallions
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/2 bunch parsley
- 1/2 bunch cilantro
- 1/3 bunch mint
- 5 tbs olive oil
- 1 tbs balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- a pinch chili powder
- salt and pepper
Preparation
If you are using dried cannelli beans, they need to be soaked overnight in water, if you didn’t have any and don’t have time, you can use canned beans, but they don’t taste as good as the dried ones.
Cook quinoa by steaming it, like you would make steamed rice. Add double its volume of water, bring to a boil, and reduce heat to a minimum and cover with lid. Cook for about 20 minutes.
If used, dried cannelli beans, cook them in water for about 30 minutes with 1/2 onion, 3 cloves, 1 celery stick, and 2 bay leaves. When cooked remove onion, cloves, celery, bay leaves, and drain beans.
Cut cauliflower in small florets, cut carrots in slices, then cut in half. Steam for about 10 minutes and set aside.
Mix the salsa ingredients in a mixer to make it into a smooth mixture.
When quinoa is cooked, place in a mixing bowl, add vegetables. Spoon salsa at the end and mix well.
A little craving for quinoa – Spicy quinoa with asparagus, peas and carrots
Jun 1st
Une petite envie de quinoa – Quinoa épicé aux asperges, pois et carottes
A little quinoa bowl is enough for a light dinner with a salad. Especially that today I did not have any energy whatsoever. Muggy and awfully grey weather, friends moving out of the Bay Area, is not helping with the blues.
It felt like the sky was falling on my head. That is a feeling I am very familiar with, since I grew up in the Eastern part of France, where everything is sooo green (soooo green, is what people say), obviously it’s so green because of the rain.
Gray weather + not wanting to spend to much time in the kitchen = quinoa
I mixed many vegetables to this quinoa so that one bowl would be nutritious enough as a meal. The spices gave it a nice kick, a little exotic flavor to it.
Ingredients for 4 as side dish
- 1 cup quinoa
- 1 carrot, shredded
- 1 bunch asparagus
- 1/3 cup peas
- 1 onion
- 3 garlic cloves
- 1 tbs mustard seeds
- 1 tbs cumin seeds
- 1 tbs coriander powder
- 4 cardamom pods
- 3 curry leaves
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- salt and pepper
Preparation
Chop the onions and brown in olive oil, add garlic, stir for a few minutes at low heat. Add the spices, mix well for a few minutes, then the carrot and the peas. Stir the mixture. Add quinoa, and cook for a few minutes with the mixture. Add broth, curry leaves, salt and pepper.
Cut the asparagus in one inch chunk and cook them the in salted boiling water, for 5 minutes or more, until cooked but still firm.
Cover and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to very low, and cook for about 20 minutes until the quinoa has absorbed the water.
When quinoa is cooked, add asparagus and mix well. Sprinkle with cilantro and serve hot.
