Quinoa For Breakfast?

Quinoa is an amino acid-rich (protein) seed that has a fluffy, creamy, slightly crunchy texture and a somewhat nutty flavor when cooked. Most commonly considered a grain, quinoa is actually a relative of leafy green vegetables like spinach and Swiss chard.

It is a recently rediscovered ancient "grain" native to South America, quinoa was once called "the gold of the Incas," who recognized its value in increasing the stamina of their warriors. Not only is quinoa high in protein, but the protein it supplies is complete protein, meaning that it includes all nine essential amino acids. Not only is quinoa's amino acid profile well balanced, making it a good choice for vegans concerned about adequate protein intake, but quinoa is especially well-endowed with the amino acid lysine, which is essential for tissue growth and repair. In addition to protein, quinoa features a host of other health-building nutrients. Because quinoa is a very good source of manganese as well as a good source of magnesium, iron, copper and phosphorus, this "grain" may be especially valuable for persons with migraine headaches, diabetes and atherosclerosis.

Go here to learn more!

Pumpkin Breakfast Quinoa

1/4 cup quinoa

1/2 almond milk (sub. coconut milk or cows milk)

1/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 tbsp Mila (or Chia Seeds or Ground Flax)

1 tsp. maple syrup

Dash of cinnamon

Soak quinoa for 5 minutes in water, drain and add to pot with milk. Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer and cover. Let cook for 10-15 minutes or until the milk is absorbed and the quinoa is fluffy. Stir in the remaining ingredients and transfer to serving bowl. Add toppings, then eat!

Toppings:

chunky apple sauce (recipe here)

chopped walnuts

splash of almond milk

FJA 1st Annual Fall Food Cook OFF

cream cheese frosting

 Students For Fair Trade

 Caroline

pumpkin soup with sage from the GroW Community Garden

the best pumpkin seeds I have ever tasted, brown sugar, cayenne, rosemary

 Jess with SAFI

 Israeli couscous w/ veggies

 students tasting and voting

Justin, Melissa and Caroline

the prizes were bags filled with jams, butters, apples, breads and cookies from the farmers market
and the winners are....

 Third Place: SOFI

 Second Place: Students for Fair Trade

First Place: Caroline

h

 oh no, it's time to go to harry potter

 things always manage to get silly...

Big THANK YOU to everyone who participated!

Fall Love in a Bowl

 

 a beautiful bowl of fall flavors

Sauteed Kale and Apple with Dried Cranberries, Toasted Walnuts & Goat Cheese

Serves 2

• bunch of kale, stems removed and chopped
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 apple, chopped
• 1 tbsp chopped toasted walnuts
• 1 tbsp dried cranberries
• goat cheese, crumbled
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat oil over medium heat, once pan is warm at apples and sautee until tender. Add kale, salt and pepper. Once kale is wilted and soft at toasted walnuts and cranberries. Remove from heat and crumble goat cheese on top.

I like this over red quinoa to make it a complete meal, or as a side dish.

Roasted Acorn Squash

• 1 tsp. olive oil
• accorn squash
• salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds, cut into half moons and coat with olive oil salt and pepper. Place on a cookie sheet and roast for 15 minutes, flip them and roast for another 15 minutes or until tender and caramelized. I eat the skins, but if you have trouble digesting them just spoon out the inside.

And yes, that is a tiny piece of Atwater Bakery's Cranberry Walnut Sourdough on the side there, yum!

Super Easy Week-Night Dinner

This is so so easy to make and super tasty and satisfying. Whether you have a full kitchen or not, all you need is a microwave and you can make this dish. I love Mexican flavors and heat so variations of this dish are a staple on my week-night dinner menu. I started making this burrito when I first arrived at college and only had a microwave to work with, now, even though I have a full kitchen (even though it's tiny) I still make these for dinner when I am looking or something super quick.

Re-fried Bean Burritos

• 1 can re-fried beans
• whole wheat tortillas
• mexican cheese blend, or cheddar
• handful of spinach
• corn salsa
• fresh tomato salsa

Microwave (or heat on stove top) the beans until warmed through, wrap tortillas in moist paper towels and warm in the microwave (about 10 seconds), put a handful of spinach, a dollop of re-fried beans, cheese, and salsas in the tortilla and enjoy.

Sometimes I add avocado, or other random veggies I have on hand, roasted butternut squash, sauteed kale or cabbage, whatever tastes good. Don't be afraid to use a different kind of bean either!

If you are a GW student thinking of replicating this dish, I bought all of the things needed for this dish at Trader Joes. The corn salsa is with the other canned salsas, the fresh salsa is in the refrigerator section, and they have 3 different kinds of re-fried beans to choose from, pick whichever you like.

Another wonderful variation of this dish is a rice bowl, I start with a base of brown rice then I add beans (black, kidney, or re-fied) and add my toppings. So easy, so tasty.

C is for Cookie

Some FJAers asked for this cookie recipe, so here it is! I whipped these up for our meeting last night, they are super easy to make, vegan, not to sweet, healthy, and light tasting.

Adapted from Oh She Glows 

Pumpkin Pie Banana Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 Flax ‘egg’  (2 tsp. ground flaxseed + 2 tablespoons water)
• 1 cup regular oats
• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 tbsp chopped walnuts
• 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
  
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup agave (you could also use maple syrup)
• 1 small banana, chopped
• 3/4 cup canned pumpkin 

I might use 1/4 cup walnuts next time for a bit more crunch and maybe a tad more cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice might be nice in these also!

Directions: Preheat the oven to 375F. Mix flax egg in a small bowl and set aside. Mix dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl and set aside. Mix wet ingredients in a small to medium sized bowl and then add flax or chia egg. Stir. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients. Stir well and shape cookies onto a pan. Makes 12 large cookies. Cook for 13 minutes at 375F.

PizzaMania

In an effort to use up the rest of our CSA vegetables, a few of us got together to throw all of our slightly wilting fruits and veggies on a few pizzas.

Caroline rolling the gluten-free dough

Me rolling the whole wheat dough

Caramelized onions and peppers on the left and white wine baby bella mushrooms on the right

Pizza sauce on the GF dough

Mozzarella, goat cheese, and feta

Gluten free pizza with brussels sprouts, shallots, spinach, onions, peppers, mushrooms, many types of cheese and tomato sauce

Greek pizza w spinach, feta, olive, red pepper flakes, and mozzarella. Brussels sprout pizza w shallots and fresh mozz. Caramelized onions, peppers and mushrooms with fresh mozz too.

Pizzas all done!

Topping to our dessert pizza--walnuts, pecans, cranberries, apples, honey goat cheese.


Apples for the dessert pizza.

Hungry eaters got to the pizza before the camera did!

Enjoying yummy homemade pizza!

Kathleen : )


More pizzamania nights to come as the seasons and available foods change!

A Recipe for Reluctant Cooks: Baked Eggplant Slices

Happy Monday!

Mary Ellen here with a quick post for all your reluctant cooks (such as myself). While I love eating any sort of fresh, healthy and innovative meals, I have mostly stuck with raw foods because a) raw food rocks b) biting raw fruit or veggies is a lot like biting into a magical package of health and crunch and c) I am an anxious cook.

Determined to conquer my anxiety and delve into the enigmatic world of stoves and spatulas, I whipped up a quick and easy snack with an eggplant from the GroW Community Garden awhile back. Some people have told me that eggplants are hard to deal with, but I've always enjoyed eating spongy purple vegetables - and they have been growing so well in the garden!

I used a recipe from The Starving Students' Vegetarian Cookbook by Dede Hall for baked eggplant slices.

You will need:

• 1 eggplant peeled and cut into slices
• 1 tablespoon softened butter
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon grated onion

Directions:

• preheat oven to 400 degrees
• mix butter, oil, lemon juice, and onion.
• put eggplant slices on aluminum covered cookie sheet
• spread mixture over both sides of the slices
• bake 6 minutes, flip over, bake 6 more (or until it is tender)

I'm not really sure what I'm doing in this photo...cleaning the grater? Such an anxious cook...

What's with the grater, Mary Ellen?

Success! Baked eggplant! The cookbook recommended to dip it in catsup or chili sauce. I put a dollop of hummus on it, then ate about five slices and rather forcefully fed the rest to my roommates. I promise, they liked it!

This was a quick and easy recipe, and a great first step for new cooks (if I do say so myself...)

Give it a try! And I highly recommend the cookbook by Hall!

Have a wonderful week!

How to GroW a Kombucha SCOBY

You may be asking yourself "what is kombucha?" Kombucha is an effervescent and tangy health drink made from fermenting sweetened tea, and something I drink just about everyday. My mom and I joke that we like to drink it for "cocktail hour" since we like to enjoy a glass before dinner. Kombucha contains multiple species of yeast and bacteria, as well as the organic acids, active enzymes, amino acids, and polyphenols produced by these microbes.

Go here to learn more about Kombucha


To make kombucha you only need two things, sweetened tea and a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast), AKA “mother,” or “mushroom.” Kombucha mothers are pretty easy to find these days if your friends are making this drink, but if your friends haven't jumped on the kombucha wagon yet you have two options for obtaining a SCOBY, 1) you buy one off craigslist for anywhere from $15-35 or 2) you grow your own for less than $4.


What you need to grow your own mother:

• 1 bottle of Organic, Raw Kombucha
• 1 glass jar or bowl
• 1 kitchen towel
• 1 rubber-band
• 1 cup of room temperature sweetened tea

You can buy the kombucha at just about any health food store. I got mine at Columbia Plaza Market, they also carry it at the GW Deli and Whole Foods. If you can’t find it near you though, you can buy a bottle of it online. IMPORTANT: Make sure it’s organic, raw, and unflavored with juice. You just want the plain, original beverage.

The sweetened tea can be as simple as a cup of black or green tea, sweetened with a tablespoon of sugar. I used Yogi Green Tea Kombucha and a tablespoon of white sugar.

Pour the kombucha and room temp sweetened tea into your bowl or jar

Cover it with a towel so it can breathe but be protected from insects and other contaminants and let it sit. Over time, a new SCOBY will start to form on top of the liquid. First it will appear as a thin film, then slowly it will thicken up. Once it is about 1/4 inch thick it is ready. It takes about 3 weeks to grow a SCOBY that is around 1/4-1/3 inch thick, it really depends on the temperature of the room you are trying to grow the SCOBY in. For example, in the summer it might only take 2 weeks. Above is a picture of mine sitting on top of my microwave in my kitchen.

Fall = Apples = Apple Desserts

Apples are one of the best parts of fall in my mind. I have lots of recipes for apple desserts but today I decided to make an old family recipe for Chopped Apple Pudding Cake. Sounds weird, pudding and cake? But I promise it's not like pudding, it's more like a super moist, gooey, spiced apple cake. This recipe is super simple, uses minimal ingredients, and highlights some of the best flavors of fall.

Chopped Apple Pudding Cake

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup flour

2 cups chopped apples

1 cup chopped walnuts

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 
2. Cream butter and sugar and then add the egg. 
3. Sift dry ingredients together and add to wet mixture, blend. 
4. Fold in apples and nuts.
5. Spread evenly in baking dish and bake for one hour.

 I used a mix of golden delicious and rome apples

 Fresh out of the oven

I enjoyed mine warm and à la mode.