Despite the fact that T’s the one who was raised vegetarian and intermittently vegan, she’s the Hobbit who is grumpiest, snarliest, and pickiest about food. It may just be that she is simply grumpy, snarly and picky about everything (“What? Never,” you gasp. Yeah, nice try.) — but from places to people to foods, anything new gets a sidelong look, and a long, cool appraisal before she decides it might have some worth.
Quinoa, the alleged mother-grain of the Incas was not a big winner with her at all. The first time she had it, it was undercooked, crunchy, and weird tasting. Never mind that it appeared visually inoffensive, never mind that it never actually did anything more than taste slightly off — and that could have been just in how it was cooked. There was the potential that it might, taste questionable more than once, and that was enough to prevent her from trying again.
Though she would dutifully cook it for D., something about all those weird little… tail thingies around the individual grains, once it was cooked, kind of squicked her out. Knowing this wasn’t exactly…er, logical, she kept it to herself, and just put enough on her plate at any potluck gathering (and stirred it around and left it) so as not to offend.
Our twelve-year-old (practically) chiropractor, in the guise of an actual adult healthcare practitioner occasionally asks us about our diet, and remarked blandly at our six month workup that we ate more cereal grains than we should. Of course, being vegetarians, we weren’t as amenable to his suggestion to cut down on grain and supplement with fish and chicken as we might have been, but as the wet-weather-sedentary pounds began to pile on, T. began to rethink her abrupt dismissal of the quinoa. It’s the only grain that’s a complete protein. It contains all the essential amino acids. And it’s — at least in theory — like …rice, except without the negatives of empty carbs and starches. She bought a bag (it’s actually UK grown in Essex, no less), and put it in the cupboard.
Where it sat.
In an adventurous burst of creative cooking, D. rescued it from exile. Now, we’ve never yet gotten used to the lack of continuity in the nutritional information on packaging here. What we took for granted in the U.S. — the stock label indicating serving sizes — doesn’t commonly exist, except on certain store brands. In this case, cooking directions were also spotty, as it called for something like four liters of water per hundred grams of grain. Not in the mood to figure out conversions, D. asked T. how she would cook it. She thought it should at least have the same water-to-grain ratio as rice. D. agreed, mostly. He put in a little extra water, just in case.
The pilaf-like consistency of the quinoa which we expected didn’t appear. Instead, it was rather… er… porridge-y. Possibly soupy. D. looked at it with dismay, but served it up with a dollop of butter and the side of Thai-esque curried tofu and veg, explaining that it wasn’t one of his finest efforts.
“Do you want to doctor it with something?” D. asked, wincing as T. took a bite.
“Mmm?” she mumbled, turning a page in the book that she was reading. “What?”
“Um…nothing,” he said, and stared as the grumpy, picky, snarly person cleared her plate.
Something about adding a bit more water and cooking the quinoa to the consistency of congee, the Asian rice porridge, was a serious hit. T. is a finally — at long last — a fan of quinoa, and can see why the child chiropractor eats it for breakfast. (Of course, he also eats his with the traditional Scottish grilled tomatoes and lean bacon instead of potatoes and black pudding, but T’s not prepared to go there just yet).
We used coconut milk instead of the soy milk, which is an awesome substitution. It’s very subtle in the finished pie, but is definitely worth it. We used a kabocha squash, halved, baked cut side up.
