Experimental Porridge

With red quinoa!

Our regular Easter houseguests bring us presents, because they are lovely polite people. And since they are friends and know us, they bring good presents. I now have a selection of interesting ingredients to play with, once of which is a bag of red quinoa.

I've eaten this in a lovely tabouli-like salad at Satis, but the weather took a change for the cold recently and I fancied something hot. So I went off googling and found this quinoa porridge recipe at Feasts and Fotos. It's not a regular read of mine, but it looks like a good blog. Nice pics: her photo skills put me to shame.

There's another quinoa recipe there that I'd like to try: quinoa with kale and walnuts. I'd have to make it almonds instead, for the sake of the bloke, but it seems nicely seasonal. Choku Bai Jo had some great black kale in stock last week. And if you are wondering about the quinoa, there was some at Choku Bai Jo, and also the Dickson health food shop stocks both red and white varieties. I'm sure it won't be too hard to find.

So, anyway, back to the porridge. I put it off for almost a week, because cooking something for half an hour in the morning before breakfast is not usually on my agenda. (Weekend and holiday brunches are different.) And then I had an idea: make it for lunch one day, and make enough to see whether it would reheat successfully next morning in the microwave. And the answer is yes, it will - with a caveat. Read on for my recipe variant and notes.


Recipe: Red Quinoa Porridge
1 cup uncooked red quinoa
1 cup water
2 cup milk
1 stick cassia cinnamon
2 tbsp chopped dried apricots
2 tbsp dried cranberries
1 tbsp golden syrup
1 tbsp plain yogurt
Put quinoa, water, cinnamon and 1 cup of the milk in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes or until most of the water has been absorbed.
Add the remaining cup of milk and the dried fruits.
Simmer for about 15 minutes or until it reaches your desired consistency.
Add the syrup and the yogurt and stir to combine.

Notes: This quantity made three servings for me. It's not creamy like an oat porridge, but it does have a pleasant slightly chewy grain texture. It's a good winter breakfast; I'd make it again.

It reheated just fine in the microwave, so that made for a good quick weekday breakfast. But a small warning: the original author says "Adding some yogurt might seem odd to some of you, but trust me, it provides a lovely silky consistency." Yes, it does. But I'd advise adding it to your bowl, not the saucepan. I think this texture effect is lost on reheating.

I've doubled the quantity and used different dried fruits and sweeteners from the original. I also found that the time needed to be longer - whether that is because my taste differs, or it's the difference between red and white quinoa, I do not know.