Tag Archives: quinoa

Homemade Vegetable Stock Update

12 Wednesday Jun 2013

Posted by in Recipes

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , ,

I originally shared my guide to making homemade vegetable stock last spring, which walks through some different approaches to ingredients and techniques. There are lots of ways to make stock to your personal liking, so I hope you’re doing it and enjoying it as much as I do!

Now that I’m in the habit of making my own stock, I use a lot more. Within the last month, I went through about 6 quarts in various recipes including balsamic marinated beets, minestrone soup, fennel lentil & sausage, and quinoa.

Sidebar: If you follow the instructions on your bag of quinoa, don’t. They will tell you to use the same ratio of liquid to grain as you would with rice, 2:1. This makes a mushy mess. Try reducing the liquid by a third to a half cup, per cup of grain. I promise you’ll be much happier with the result. I make a pot of quinoa almost every week and use it throughout to sprinkle on salads, or a substitute for rice in Mexican and Asian dishes, or add to breakfast scrambles. Because it’s a little drier this way, it absorbs the flavors of whatever it’s with. And because I make it with stock instead of water, it contributes more complexity to the flavor as well.

What took homemade vegetable stock from an occasional thing to a regular habit for me was freezing vegetable scraps. And I’m not super fancy about it either. I just use big freezer bags. Whenever I’m cooking I get the bag out and add more scraps. They accumulate for a couple weeks and then I make a pot of stock.

As a result, there’s much less waste coming out of our kitchen. If I know something is going to spoil before I can use it – like if we’re leaving town for the weekend – I just add it to the scrap bag. I don’t waste my time with the tiny inner cloves of garlic, throw away the bottom half of every fresh herb bunch, or feel guilty about not using mushroom stems in recipes. All that stuff gets frozen and turned into delicious stock. Then composted.

But the stock itself will spoil so…I freeze that too. Once cooled, I put it in my favorite extra-large ice cube trays, and then transfer the frozen cubes of stock into, you guessed it, another big freezer bag. I always have pre-measured stock ready to use. Super easy, thrifty, and waste conscious.

Advertisement

Quinoa with Sweet Potatoes & Broccoli

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Recipes

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

Quinoa with Sweet Potato and Broccoli

I’ve recently started cooking a few cups of quinoa to keep in my refrigerator for use in salads, etc., throughout the week. It’s an easy way to make a salad more filling and add protein – plus it soaks up all the dressing at the bottom. Yum.

Quinoa holds up better if made a little dry – instead of a 2:1 ratio of water to grain per the instructions, I’ll usually use 3.5 cups of water with 2 cups of grain.

In addition to salads, this recipe below is an excellent way to use quinoa. It’s similar to a stir fry but different enough to be a new trick up your sleeve. Most of all, you have to love the flavor complexity and nutritional credentials this dish packs into just one bowl.

Quinoa with Sweet Potato and Broccoli Ingredients

I found the original recipe online, here’s my adaptation:

Ingredients

  • 1 large sweet potato, peeled and cubed
  • 2 cups broccoli or broccolini florets
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 4-5 garlic cloves, minced
  • .5 cups whole raw almonds
  • 2 cups cooked quinoa
  • 3 tbsp grape seed oil
  • 2 tbsp Bragg Liquid Aminos
  • 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
  • 1 tsp Sriracha

Instructions

  1. Mix the Bragg’s, sesame oil and Sriracha into a dressing and pour over the quinoa. Toss in a large bowl and set aside.
  2. In a small sauce pan over medium heat, cook the sweet potato cubes in enough water to barely cover. Check regularly, remove from heat and drain when they begin to soften. Maybe 10 minutes.
  3. In a large nonstick pan over medium heat, sauté the onions, garlic and almonds in grape seed oil for 5 minutes. Add the broccoli and partially-cooked sweet potatoes and sauté all for another 5 minutes. Don’t overcook – you want the broccoli to stay vibrant green and the sweet potatoes to keep their shape.
  4. Transfer vegetables into bowl with flavored quinoa and toss all ingredients together.