Cinnamon-Maple Quinoa

In an effort to try to incorporate more easy, healthy grains and side dishes into my normally “one pot dinner” mix, I have had been making a few quinoa dishes.  I have to say, we are not loving quinoa, even though it has a fairly mild taste.  I thought that I would try a breakfast recipe with quinoa and change things up a bit.  We love breakfast and love making things sweeter... however, it was still not a big hit!  However, we try to share our failures here on LTY as well as our successes, and you might have better luck with your epicutie!  This recipe comes from Double Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cup water
• 1 cup quinoa
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup sweet potato puree (We do not have sweet potatoes where I live so I used pureed butternut squash and I think a carrot puree would also work.  If you do not have any of the above, try a 1/2 cup of applesauce.)
• 1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
• 1/3 cup light vanilla soy milk or milk
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 6 teaspoons pure maple syrup divided, for garnish
• 6 teaspoons chopped or ground walnuts or almonds, divided for garnish

Steps:

1. In a small saucepan, bring water to a boil.
2. Meanwhile, rinse the quinoa in cold water and strain in a fine colander or cheesecloth.
3. Add the quinoa to the boiling water and reduce heat to a simmer.
4. Cook for 12 minutes, uncovered and remove from heat.  Let sit covered for 5 minutes.
5. In a separate pan, melt the butter.
6. Stir in sweet potato puree, 1 tablespoon of the maple syrup, milk, cinnamon and salt. 
7. When the quinoa has finished cooking, stir in the sweet potato mixture.
8. Divide into bowls and top with a teaspoon each of maple syrup and nuts.

Yield: 6

Timing: If you leave out the nut topping, this recipe can be given as early as 9 months, with the nut topping, 12 months as long as the nuts are finely ground and your epicutie has no nut allergies.

Miscellaneous:

• Rinsing the quinoa is very important!  I left this step out when I first made this recipe because I was not sure how I would strain it, but I had to throw away my entire first batch because it did not turn out.  The second time, I used a sturdy paper towel in my wire colander and that worked well.
• I ground the nuts since I still do not feel comfortable giving Little Frances nuts that require a lot of chewing.

Difficulty: 2 out of 5.  Its pretty easy, but you have to dirty two pots.  I hate dirtying two pots and it takes a while.  Also, this is not a quick breakfast recipe and is more work than I like to do early in the morning.

Epicutie Rating: Somewhat Yummy! ----See left side of the page for descriptions.

Epicutie Frances was willing to try many, many bites of this at first, so by our LTY standards this one is Somewhat Yummy.  I think she ate so much because I told her it was like oatmeal, and she loves oatmeal! However, she seemed to really hate it the more she ate it.  She even gave it to her dad and said “Here Daddy, throw away” when she saw that her dad was emptying his bowl.  It would also like to add that this recipe got a big ole’ sourpuss from her mom and dad!