Foodie Friday Ingredient Hour: Quinoa

This week on Foodie Friday Ingredient Hour, we're going to talk about my hands-down favorite grain, quinoa! Not only does quinoa pack a punch in the protein department (complete protein, at that!), it has a good amount of iron, amino acids, vitamins & minerals; it's also tasty, texturally interesting, and gluten-free.

Quinoa, pronounced 'keen-wah', unlike most grains, does not come from grass. Nope, quinoa belongs to the family chenopodaciae, making it closely related to amaranth, pigweed, beets and spinach. Also tumbleweeds...

 Our friend quinoa hails from South America, specifically the Andes of Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. It was prized as animal forage long before its domestication for human use several thousand years ago. The Incans regarded quinoa as sacred, referring to it as "mother of all grains", and quinoa was and continues to be a significant component of the Andean diet.

Aside from its nutritional value, quinoa also does well in dry, sandy soils, making it valuable as a crop in otherwise poor growing regions. Though the plant is generally on the tender side, like most chenopods, some cultivars have been selected for increased cold tolerance.

Cooking quinoa is a little different from, say, rice. It needs to be rinsed quite a bit, otherwise the respectable saponin coating the seeds have will make a bitter mess! When cooking quinoa, I just rinse

it until it stops (for the most part, at least) creating a foamy layer on the water, signalling that the majority of the saponins have mad their departure.

Quinoa can be used for a veritable plethora of recipes! Its nutty but very mild flavor lends well to both sweet and savory concoctions. Indeed, it can be eaten with fruit, nuts, and whatever else you like on oatmeal as a delicious, nutritious breakfast just as beautifully as it can lend itself to a savory dinner dish, such as Viva La Quinoa!. Quinoa in flour form is lovely for baking, to make pancakes, or

really anything that strikes your fancy! Gluten free folks will enjoy the versatility of quinoa in all its forms, and being a "pseudocereal" grain, is friendly to Paleo eaters, too... well, there's some debate, but I'm not going to go there...

Before we tie a bow on this little exploration, here's a quick nutritional breakdown for a cup of this week's star:

Total Fat 10 g
Saturated fat 1.2 g
Polyunsaturated fat 6 g
Monounsaturated fat 2.7 g
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 9 mg
Potassium 957 mg
Total Carbohydrate 109 g
Dietary fiber 12 g
Protein 24 g

So friends, next time you get the chance, give quinoa a try if you haven't already... it really is amazing, and oh so versatile!