A Tolerable Quinoa Recipe

Now how’s that for some clickbait? I am really getting the hang of this.

I decided to take a bit of a break from moaning about the vicissitudes of my life to share with you one of the very few acceptable quinoa recipes I know. As you probably are aware, I don’t like quinoa that much. I almost never order it at restaurants and I really only cook it when I know I’ve been eating too many brownies/cookies/chips. So this is what I eat to detox from all that magnificent joyful sugar. Done properly, it’s not TOO much of a drag. It’s also vegan and gluten-free, if those are things you care about.

The original recipe is called One Pot Tandoori Quinoa but I am not going to call it that because, as the author admits, it makes absolutely no sense. No tandoori oven is present here. This is a one pot on the stove recipe. So I will call it…

One Pot Indian-Spiced Quinoa

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive or coconut oil
• 1 cup diced sweet potatoes (not too big)
• 1/2 dices red or yellow onion (I used yellow)
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced fresh ginger (I didn’t have fresh and had to use dried; that’s life, man)
• 2 tbsp garam masala
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/4 cup (ish) vegetable stock
• 1 15 oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed (I actually didn’t have any and just went without)
• 1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
• 1 tsp sugar
• S&P to taste

Instructions

• Pour oil into a large skillet and wait for it to warm. Once it’s hot, add sweet potatoes and stir.
• You want to cook them for 5-10 minutes, depending on how small or large you diced them; smaller obviously doesn’t take as long.
• Once they’re a little softer, add onions and stir. Add the spices and stir some more.
• Add in quinoa, tomatoes, chickpeas, sugar, and vegetable stock. Bring it to a boil before lowering the heat and covering to let it simmer. It should take 20 or so minutes for the quinoa to cook and everything to come together.
• Serve and congratulate yourself on being so impressively healthy. You are an earth goddess. You are fitness personified. Your glow is blinding.

Spices are pretty important here in order to avoid a totally bland end result, so be generous with your garam masala and anything else you choose to include.

It’s good rainy day food. It’s a good pre-brownie appetizer. 😉