Quinoa (“Keen-wa”)

This right now is popular in our kitchen. Super Popular. If you’ve never tried this super seed, you need to stop reading this post, go to your nearest grocery store and pick up your very own delicious bag.

This little super seed is not only delicious tasting in just about anything you make (as well as a stand alone side dish or as a breakfast cereal) it’s also good for you. High in protein and nine essential amino acids, gluten free and low in calories this is a main staple in our household.

We’ve been making a lot of quinoa based foods over the last few weeks. The soup below is one of them. Trust us, there’s more to come…

Quinoa Sausage Soup

Ingredients:

• Vegetable or Chicken Broth (about 7 cups or two boxes)
• Assortment of Veggies (use your imagination!!!)
• 2 cups of water
• Your favorite sausage (cooked)
• 1 cup uncooked quinoa (well rinsed)

Tara, being from Washington State, is quickly learning about the metric system. Oh and also learning a little French here and there since everything comes in both English and French. A quick download of a metric conversion app on her iPhone has come in real handy when trying to figure out how many cups are in 900mL (approx 3.8 cups). In a large pot bring your broth and the 2 cups of water to a boil.

When you are at a boil, add your well rinsed (uncooked) quinoa to the broth. If you’re unsure how to rinse quinoa here is a great video showing you how. Ever wonder why you need to rinse it off before using? Quinoa has a bitter tasting coating called saponins. This bitter coating deters birds and other seed eating animals from consuming, leaving plenty for the rest of us…let the broth and quinoa cook on a soft rolling boil for about 10 minutes.

Now comes the fun part!

Your soup = your veggies. Add whatever your heart desires. Think color. Think organic. Think tasty. Don’t be shy about what you add. Trust me it’s probably going to be delicious. Here’s what we came up with:

  

  

• 1 white onion
• 1 bunch green onion
• 3 large carrots
• 1 head of broccoli
• 1 leek

Throw all those delicious vegetables into your stock pot and turn your soup down to a simmer. By now the quinoa is just about finished and the only thing left to add is your sausage. We have a local butcher just down the street from us that we tried out for the first time when making this soup. We chose a very spicy meat so that we wouldn’t have to add any other seasoning to our soupy goodness…

Your soup should be looking pretty tasty right about now. The quinoa will be fully cooked, the vegetables should be getting tender and your sausage should be adding some nice spices to the mix…

  

Simmer for another 10 or 15 minutes until your hardest vegetable (ours = carrots) are tender. Salt and pepper to taste (this is optional and we found we really didn’t need to add any additional spices because the sausage did the work for us).

So Easy. So Hearty.

We devoured this soup.

~ Now that’s good eatin folks!