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The Quintessential Quinoa Cookbook by Wendy Polisi

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Concept: All about the grain quinoa. It actually can be used in more ways than I thought. 

Author: Wendy Polisi is a cook, writer and blogger. She shares healthy quinoa recipes at cookingquinoa.net and gluten free recipes at mamabalance.com.

Food type: All, but heavy on lunches and dinner

Monologue score (1-10) (how entertaining, not the recipes): 3. Quite dry and very factual. There was no interaction between the author and the reader. However, I did appreciate that she had a kids quinoa section with meals geared toward kids. 

Difficulty level: Intermediate to hard. Not hard, but it's not an ingredient a lot of people are familiar with. The cooking method is similar to that of rice. Also, it tends to blend in and take on the taste of whatever you cook it with, so either it's hidden and just meant to add protein/texture to the meal or you have to dress it up by adding other ingredients that make it tasty.

Approximate percentage of recipes I would be willing to try: I only marked 14 recipes (out of around 83) which is low for me.  So about 15%. 

I was somewhat disappointed that half or more of the recipes used quinoa products that I have never seen in a regular grocery store. These ingredients included quinoa flakes, quinoa flour, and quinoa pasta. I would bet a place like Whole Foods would carry them, but I would also guess that it would be expensive. Quinoa seeds (traditional quinoa) is already more expensive than other grains like rice. However, were I to get my hands on some of these ingredients I would definitely up my number of recipes to try. 

Sample recipes I'm interested in trying:

  • Easy Breakfast Casserole - I'm intrigued to see what the texture would be like to have quinoa in with scrambled eggs
  • Quinoa Black Bean Soup - I hadn't thought about adding quinoa to soup before
  • Quinoa Stuffed Butternut Sqaush
  • Quinoa Pot Pie 
  • Cheeseburger Meatloaf
Recipes I'm interested in if I had additional ingredients (see comments above):

  • I think quinoa pasta in general sounds good
  • Quinoa pancakes
  • Blueberry Muffins
  • Crock Pot Pear and Blueberry Crumble
  • Raspberry Crumb Cake
  • Chicken Nuggets coating




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