Have You Heard of Quinoa?

Saturday was such a fun day! My grade school friends, Diane and Joanne along with our line dancing teacher, Jan and her husband, Dave went to Kapiolani Hospital's Vegan cooking class. In three hours we learned quite a bit and sampled some very different dishes.

The first thing we learned was how to make a vegetable soup using vegetable broth, a bunch of vegetables and a food processor. I wasn't used to having soup all mushed up and pureed, but it was spicy and different.

We also learned to make Banana Cornbread without eggs and Pineapple Freeze which is frozen pineapple chunks and vanilla almond milk chopped up in a food processor and frozen into cups. It as quite tasty.

What I really enjoyed learning about was Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah). We learned how to make a Quinoa Salad. Wikipedia says: "Quinoa ( /ˈkiːnwɑː/ or /kɪˈnoʊ.ə/, Spanish: quinua, from Quechua: kinwa), a species of goosefoot (Chenopodium), is a grain-like crop grown primarily for its edible seeds. It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal, or grain, as it is not a member of the grass family. As a chenopod, quinoa is closely related to species such as beets, spinach, and tumbleweeds.

Quinoa was of great nutritional importance in pre-Columbian Andean civilizations, secondary only to the potato, and was followed in importance by maize. In contemporary times, this crop has become highly appreciated for its nutritional value, as its protein content is very high (12%–18%). Unlike wheat or rice (which are low in lysine), and like oats, quinoa contains a balanced set of essential amino acids for humans, making it an unusually complete protein source among plant foods. It is a good source of dietary fiber and phosphorus and is high in magnesium and iron. Quinoa is gluten-free and considered easy to digest. Because of all these characteristics, quinoa is being considered a possible crop in NASA's Controlled Ecological Life Support System for long-duration manned spaceflights."

Cooked quinoa reminded me a bit of couscous. All you had to do was cook the quinoa and add whatever vegetables you like such as garbanzo beans, sweet peppers, green onions, cucumbers, sun dried tomatoes, raisins, etc. To all that you would add firm tofu for added protein.


The dressing was the oil from the sun dried tomato jar, pepper, coarse sea salt and balsamic vinegar. I was surprised at how much I liked it. I'm going to try making this someday soon.

After having sampled all that food, you'd think we'd be too full for lunch. However, when Jan and Dave invited us to have lunch at Siam Kitchen Express which is located at the Waimalu Shopping Center, we couldn't pass up a chance to try something new.

In keeping with the spirit of our class, we had some vegetarian fried rice. It was serious yummm. Art says we'll all have to go there sometime so he and mom can try it out, too.


All in all, this was truly a wonderful day!