Toasted Quinoa

Quinoa.  Susan introduced me to it this past year (as a birthday present if I remember correctly) and after cooking it the first time I knew I had to make it a diet staple.

The basic recipes I’d found were good enough but on a recent trip to Fredericksburg, TX we found the best recipe yet.

Where? The Navajo Grill.

Everything we had for dinner was good. Very good.  The Quinoa though was wonderful.

(not a picture of the meal we had at Navajo Grill)

Christmas was coming up and I thought the quinoa from Navajo Grill would make a good addition to dinner and sent an email asking if they’d be willing to share the recipe.

At the end of the next day I received a reply with the recipe!  It wasn’t a precise recipe.  An ingredient list with no precise proportions (1 of this, two of that, etc.) but that was ok.  I like a cooking challenge.

Since I wasn’t able to get all the exact ingredients (it was late afternoon on Christmas eve) I made do with what I could get (increase the challenge!)

It actually turned out pretty good.  The taste was similar to the quinoa I’d had at Navajo Grill but not quite the same.

I sent an email back to Navajo Grill thanking them for the recipe and letting them know of my results.  They wrote back telling me that one of the ingredients I’d had to use a canned substitute for was critical to the result.

A few days later I was in the kitchen again with everything I needed.

Yum.  Not a perfect reproduction of the quinoa I’d had at Navajo Grill but it was close.  A few more tries, tweaking ingredients a bit more will get me there.  And it’ll be fun working on it.

Tonight was the third round of quinoa cooking.

Started off by rinsing white and red quinoa.

Combining everything in a deep pan.

 

Cooking it until the quinoa is done.

And then serving it up with salmon and vegetables for Susan.

And a chicken-stuffed pepper for me (with cheese!)

Yum.  I could eat the entire pan.

I haven’t shared listed the recipe here because I don’t have permission from Navajo Grill but if they don’t mind it being release to the wider world I’ll add it in later.

If you’re going to be in Fredericksburg make a point of having dinner at Navajo Grill.  You won’t regret it.

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Michael Harrison

Husband, Programmer, Irish dancer, tinkerer, astronomer, layabout (as much as possible)

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