Quinoa - Burgers & More!

At first, I was skeptical about quinoa.  I am starting to love it more and more as I realize how versatile it is!  It is such a healthy whole food.  Technically, it is a seed, but it is widely considered a whole grain and it can be prepared just like/instead of many popular whole grains.  Anyone can successfully cook quinoa, regardless of cooking experience (1 part quinoa, 2 parts water, pinch of salt, bring to a boil, reduce heat, cook until the water is absorbed).  Most quinoa is farmed in Bolivia and there is some controversy lately since there has been a boom in the popularity of quinoa.  A lot of farms have difficulty keeping up with the demand while also maintaining worker safety/fairness.  Therefore, if you use quinoa, be sure to purchase Fair Trade Certified quinoa.  This certification means all kinds of positive things for the farmers and the land.  Anyway, I digress.  What do you do with quinoa?  Quinoa can be eaten solo/mixed with veggies as a side dish (tasty when you replace the water with broth) or incorporated into recipes that call for whole grains (tabbouleh, veggie burgers, quinoa salad, etc).  In other words, it is versatile, can be served hot or cold, and provides unprocessed nutritional value.  First, you need to find quinoa.  You can find it at most grocery stores and you can find a wide variety of quinoa at natural grocers like Whole Foods (where I do 100% of my grocery shopping).  At Whole Foods (and the other natural grocers), quinoa is either available in bulk or prepackaged.  I buy Alter Eco Fair Trade brand organic quinoa.  They have different varieties, but I enjoy the rainbow quinoa:

Rainbow just means it a combo of pearl, red, and black varieties of quinoa.  Some people hypothesize that black quinoa has more antioxidants than pearl.  Who knows.  I often need to take my lunch with me to work so sometimes it is easiest to eat something that tastes good cold or hot (I prefer hot but I don't always have time to warm food up).  I found a recipe for Southwestern Vegetarian Quinoa (follow the link for the recipe) and I omitted the tomatoes, since I dislike fresh tomatoes.  It was delicious cold or hot but it made waaayyy more than I could ever eat in a couple of days.  Next time, I will reduce the recipe.  There are beautiful pictures of the quinoa on the blog with the recipe but this is how mine looked (before adding avocado):

Please excuse the obnoxiously pink bowl.  I should have taken more photos.  Anyway, this would work well as a side dish (warm) or as a salad (cold).  The beans add a nice touch of extra protein so this is really filling!  I prefer quinoa warm so I decided to try out a new recipe today.  I made quinoa burgers (follow the link for the recipe).  I followed the recipe for the most part but I cooked my quinoa a little differently (as I described above), and I used Fage 0% Greek yogurt instead of cottage cheese.  I did a test burger in a skillet with olive oil and I didn't like the way the burger absorbed the olive oil (adding a heavy flavor and extra calories).  Instead of pan frying them in olive oil, I used a Calphalon griddle with a touch of olive oil spray.  They did not stick and the correct flavors prevailed.  They were so good!  Even my quinoa-skeptical boyfriend enjoyed them :)

my quinoa burgers cooking on the griddle

I am still experimenting with quinoa and I will gladly share any recipes I try and enjoy.  I only post recipes to my blog that I have tried myself and I will always include any modifications I make.  I don't want to plagarize other peoples' blogs so I will include links to recipes I use instead of just copying and pasting them with no credit to the author.  I just hope those recipes aren't stolen from someone else!  I digress again.  If you've never tried quinoa, I hope you find inspiration here to try it for yourself.  If you are already a quinoa lover, I hope I provided you with new recipes.  If any of my readers come across a recipe for quinoa that you love, please comment and share!  Happy cooking :)