Monday 14 May 2012

Quinoa


When the lady at the Tesco check out says "Oh, what do you do with this?" you know you're buying weird food. So I told her that some people bake it into patties and others use quinoa flour to make chocolate brownies. I use it like cous cous in salads.

Because I try as hard as possible to avoid eating wheat for health reasons. Occasionally I'll slip up and eat a whole lot of bread or a whole pizza and then two days later I'll just feel completely exhausted. So I try not to do that so much. 

I had to find alternatives to all the things I used to eat that had wheat in them, and Quinoa rather conveniently solved the cous cous problem. 

And here's my Quinoa and Halloumi Cheese Salad.



What you need to serve one:

One Little Gem Lettuce.
One cup of dry Quinoa.
Half a block of Halloumi cheese, cut into thin strips.
Salt and Pepper.
Mint leaves.

What to do:

1. Wash your quinoa in cold water. Use a seive.
2. Bring five cups of water to the boil in a saucepan. Add quinoa, turn down the heat a little and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the quinoa has absorbed all the water.
3. Chop the lettuce and the mint. Make the honey mustard dressing.
4. Let the quinoa do its thing. Keep stirring occasionally to see how much water has been absorbed. 
5. When the quinoa is done and all the water is absorbed, take it off the heat and let it sit for ten minutes.
6. At this point, start on your halloumi cheese. I recommend dry frying it - place the strips in a hot frying pan with no oil or butter. When one side is golden (takes about two minutes), turn it over and do the other side.
7. Stir the dressing, the lettuce and some salt and pepper into the quinoa. Place in a bowl, add the strips of cheese and the chopped mint leaves and serve.


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