Breakfast quinoa with fruit and honey

Hot cereal is not great. You know who knew that? My grandma. It didn't matter how much cinnamon or brown sugar or magic you put in it. Oatmeal, cream of wheat, that hot-grape-nuts stuff that people pretend to like... even if it reminded her of hot cereal, she wouldn't go near it. For the most part, she was right. Hot cereal is pretty squishy and gluey and meh.

In an offhand comment in a Q&A in Food Network Magazine, one of their celebrity chefs (someone named Ellie Krieger) mentioned that she likes quinoa with fruit, honey and milk as a hot cereal for breakfast.

So of course my first thought was, oh man, Grandma would have hated that. And then I thought, ...but it does sound kind of good.

There was no recipe or anything, but it sounded simple enough, so I made some. It was simple, and it was also lovely. It's nothing like hot cereal, in my opinion, so who knows, maybe even Grandma would've liked it. I'll be honest, that's a big maybe. She was very serious about avoiding hot cereal. But if the principle of a hot bowl of breakfast is something that you can tolerate, this is delicious.

First of all, the texture of quinoa is wonderful, and grows on me more each time I have it, with that wonderfully odd little crunchiness. It's so satisfying! And this version is at least as delicious as the savory kind. The sweetness and the texture and the hot quinoa with the cold fruit... I love it.

It takes less than 20 minutes to make, and I get to spend 15 of those minutes doing morning stuff, like washing my face and brushing my hair and staring at the floor, because the stove is doing all the work. And then at the end of 20 minutes, hot breakfast!

I probably don't even have to tell you about the complete protein found in quinoa, the excellent vitamins you can get from fruit, the good fatty acids in almond milk, or the possibility that you'll absorb potent bee-power from local honey. In fact, I can say from experience that breakfast quinoa gives you a solid kind of feelin'-good energy to head into your day, which is why it's my current number one favorite breakfast.

Don't be like that, Asian veggie patties and eggs. There has to be a second place.

Breakfast Quinoa

Makes 2 servings

• 2/3 cups quinoa, rinsed
• 1 1/3 cups almond milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Chopped fruit (apples, bananas, berries, papaya — whatever's delicious)
• Honey

1. In a small saucepan, heat the milk, quinoa and vanilla until the milk begins to boil. Reduce heat to low (keep an eye on it, because even at low heat, the milk tends to froth), cover, and simmer for 15 minutes.
2. Divide the quinoa between two bowls, add chopped fruit, and drizzle honey to taste.

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Sneaky eggplant jambalaya

Lately, the threat of crippling sniffles has kept me mostly indoors. That trapped feeling has helped me finally remember to pack a lunch before work. I've even started thinking about weekday lunches when I'm preparing dinner! (Like when I got some extra wonton soup, pictured, from the Chinese delivery place over the weekend. What? Ordering counts as preparing.)

Jambalaya makes tons of leftovers and reheats really beautifully, shrimp and all. Since I've been on sort of a superfood kick lately, I decided to make up a version that sneaks in a bunch of good-for-you things.

Like eggplant.

Hear me out.

You'd never know there's eggplant in it. It lends a little extra richness to the overall flavor, but then it disappears like a spectre into the shadows, leaving behind only a high-mineral-high-fiber memory. That's right! You're getting healthy off memories here!

I snuck some quinoa in, too, which looks pretty and makes you feel good about how much protein you're getting. If you don't have any on hand, skip it, no harm done. But if you do, throw it in. What else you got? Cranberries? Go for it, they're catabolic! What, no yogurt?

Just kidding. Ha, ha! Please don't put cranberries in your jambalaya. Also yogurt. Maybe just... follow the recipe.

Sneaky Eggplant Jambalaya

• 1 lb hot turkey Italian sausage, cut into chunks
• 1 lb shrimp, peeled, shells and tails reserved
• 1 large eggplant
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 green bell pepper, diced
• 3 stalks celery, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced 
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 4 cups rice
• 3/4 cup raw quinoa, rinsed
• Cayenne pepper to taste
• Olive oil
• Water
• Chicken stock (optional)

1. In a medium pot, boil shrimp shells and tails in 4 cups water, along with a couple of tablespoons each of your diced onion and diced celery, the bay leaf, and the cloves. Reduce the heat and allow it to simmer for about 45 minutes, then strain into a bowl and discard the solids. Set aside.
2. Meanwhile, peel the eggplant and cut it into 1" cubes. Set aside (it may oxidize and brown, but that's all right).
3. In a big, shallow pot or deep pan, heat about a tablespoon of oil over medium-high heat and add sausage. Brown sausage, remove to a bowl, and set aside.
4. Quickly add onions, peppers, celery, and garlic to the hot pan and cook until vegetables begin to stick to the pan, stirring frequently to prevent the garlic from browning. Toss in eggplant and saute for 5–10 minutes. Pour 2 cups of the shrimp stock over vegetables and allow to reduce by half.
5. Stir in rice and quinoa. Season with cayenne pepper (add additional seasonings, such as garlic powder, as desired).
6. Put the cooked sausage and the raw shrimp into the pot.
7. Add the remaining 2 cups of fish stock and any additional water (or, if you rather, chicken stock) needed to completely cover the rice. Return to boiling, then reduce heat to medium-low and allow to simmer for 25–35 minutes or until rice is tender. Check periodically to make sure there's still some liquid in there; if there isn't, add more, 1/4 cup at a time, to ensure correct cooking.
8. Serve hot. The eggplant will have become very soft, so if you wish to eradicate the eggplant evidence, some extra stirring should take care of that. When storing leftovers, allow jambalaya to cool to room temperature before placing in an airtight container in the fridge.

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Keen on quinoa

Quinoa looks to be gaining popularity as a trendy food. Let's keep that going, everybody, because quinoa is incredible and we should be eating it all the time. I truly don't understand why I had never heard of this stuff until maybe last year. Unless... is this a massive hoax? Was quinoa secretly developed in a lab in 2007 and given a false history to help make it credible? Did a handful of scientists hire a team of actors to pose as Inca-descended quinoa eaters in South America and instruct them to tell everyone their people have been eating quinoa for 6,000 years? If so, what are they paying these actors, and how can they afford it when quinoa is at Whole Foods for only $5 a bag?

Important questions, but let's set them aside for the moment and just appreciate how delicious and super-crazy-nutritious quinoa is. Because for carb-lovers like me, a grain that doubles as a complete protein really does seem too good to be true, and if it's for real then who cares where it came from? EAT IT.

I got this recipe for quinoa pilaf from Dinna with Donna, a blog where a bunch of my favorite recipes come from. She's a dietetic technician, so I know I can trust her recipes to be good for me. Some of that trust may also derive from the fact that she's my mom.

At any rate, this is my favorite way to prepare quinoa. It's really tasty (the vegetables do a good job of keeping the quinoa company, since the flavor of quinoa on its own is a little shy). Plus, once you've got your quinoa cooked, it takes less than ten minutes to get it on the table, which seems like a bonus to me because of all the times I can remember trying to get a whole meal to be ready at the same time and all of a sudden I realize the fish is done and oh my god where is the rice.

Quinoa pilaf would never do that to you.

Quinoa Pilaf

Ingredients

• 1/2c fresh carrots, diced
• 1/4c fresh celery, diced
• 1/2c fresh peppers, diced (red, yellow, green, hot)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 6c Quinoa, cooked using basic recipe (on the package)
• 1/4c green onions, diced
• 1c almonds, slivered (but I used sliced)
• 1/4 tsp oregano
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. In a large skillet, saute the diced carrots, celery, peppers and garlic in butter or olive oil until crisp.
2. Stir in the oregano and green onions.
3. Add the cooked quinoa. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Add almonds and serve. SO EASY.

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