Cranberry Almond Quinoa

Recipe Source: Experimenting

Recipe Result: Tasty side dish, would make it again

My mom's really into health food. When I was in high school, she used to buy books by Dr. Andrew Weil all about natural healing foods and whole foods and such. That being said, she can get kind of obnoxious about eating only organic meat and produce. For example:

The scene, Downtown Whole Foods market, produce aisle.

Mom: "I want to buy some strawberries... can't find any."

Me: "There's a huge display of them right here. You're holding a box of them."

Mom: "They're not organic."

Me: "Mom... this is Whole Foods. Pretty much anything they sell comes from a reputable grower. It doesn't have to be organic to be good."

Mom: "Still... I want organic only."

Me: "But..."

Mom: "Do you want to eat pesticides?"

But she is kind of ahead of the curve when it comes to the new "trendy" health foods. When I home in 2006, she introduced me to quinoa. It cooks a lot like rice, and it has a considerable amount of protein for a plant. Buuuut, by itself it's kind of bitter and unexciting. So I did a little googling to see what else people have been doing with quinoa, and I decided to experiment with sweeter flavor additives: dried cranberries and sliced roasted almonds.

Ingredients:

- 1.5 Tbsp olive oil

- 1/4 cup finely diced sweet yellow onion

- 3 Tbsp dried cranberries (unsweetened)

- 3 Tbsp sliced roasted almonds

- 1 cup dry plain quinoa

- 2 cups water

- 1 dash garlic powder

- Salt & pepper, to taste.

Procedure:

1. In a small stainless steel saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat (but not so hot that it makes the oil shimmer and smoke). Saute the onions until they start to go translucent, but not brown.

2. Add the cranberries and almonds, stir, and let it heat up for a minute or 2. Then add the dry quinoa, and stir to coat all the grains in the oil. Let it heat up for a minute.

3. Add the water, turn the heat to high and bring the pot to a boil. Add the garlic powder, salt and pepper, and stir well. It's a good idea to taste the liquid, because that's how the quinoa will ultimately taste like. Once it's up to a good boil, turn the heat as low as possible, cover the pot, and let it sit for 8-10 minutes.

4. After about 8-10 minutes, lift the lid and give it a stir to make sure it's all cooked through. A good indicator that it's done is that the little thread-like things are separated from the grains. When you see it, you'll know what I'm talking about.