Quinoa

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So I finally found the mystical quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) at my local Trader Joe's. It's supposed to be this wonderful super food that helps keep you healthy and trim. I picked up a box and decided to try a vegetarian quinoa stir-fry recipe I dug up online. The recipe was okay (it will require future tweaking by yours truly to make it better), but the quinoa was really interesting. I'd have to describe it as a cross between cous cous and brown rice. It had the fluffiness and quick cook time of cous cous with some of the nuttiness and chewiness of brown rice. I actually don't really like brown rice, but the quinoa was only a teensy bit chewy. In fact, I'd say it gave the grain a nice texture instead of feeling like you're a cow chewing on its cud. It complimented the stir fry pretty nicely too.

All in all, pretty good! It seems as versatile as cous cous and rice. You can use it as the main dish or as a side or in a salad. It's all up to you. Is it a super food? I think so. It certainly filled me up pretty quickly. In fact, I think I ate too much. I piled on what I thought was the equivalent of rice, but I think less is more with quinoa. Recipes are kind of sketchy online, so for now I'd say substitute it where you would normally find cous cous or rice. This will definitely become a new staple for my pantry!