The first quinoa experience

I believe that what we eat everyday should be varied. I also love trying new ingredients in cooking all the time. Last Saturday when I was in the supermarket, I noticed something new, something that I had never tried before: quinoa, so I took a confection. I had no idea how to prepare it. On the package it was written that quinoa could be used as a substitute for rice or pasta in soups, or could be prepared alone to serve next to meat and vegetables. This evening I decided to cook quinoa and I decided to treat it like bulgur or rice, namely I wanted to make a pilaf with it.... with vegetables.

Quinoa pilaf with vegetables
Sauté a small yellow onion, one carrot and one celery stalk (mirepoix in French and soffritto in Italian) in extra virgin olive oil and add some dried garlic flakes to this sauté. (You can also use fresh garlic, I had the dried one and not much time, so just used that.)
Pour 300 grams of quinoa on the mirepoix and turn two-three times. Add 600 cc warm water.
Add on any dried vegetable you have (or fresh ones, but cut in small pieces/cubes or grated). I had a package of dried squash and spring onions mix and used half of that package (about 50 grams of dried vegetables).
Mix a vegetable bouillon cube. I use the biological one. If you have any kind of stock at home, you can use that instead of water & bouillon.
Add one teaspoon of tomato concentrate. Mix well making sure that the bouillon cube melts. Close the lid of the pan, turn down the stove to medium and leave for about 15 minutes. When you turn off the fire, leave the pan closed for some more minutes before opening the lid to serve.

I served my quinoa pilaf with boiled cannellini beans with some extra virgin olive oil over. It was right on! The mild taste of cannellini beans match very well with the rather sharp taste of quinoa and dried vegetable combination. You should absolutely try this pair.

Cabbage sauté
Tonight I had a very fresh little cabbage right from the garden of my father-in-law and wanted to use it as well. Here is how I cooked it:

Sauté a small yellow onion cut in cubes and a boat of garlic (minced) in extra virgin olive oil.
Cut the cabbage in very fine stripes. You can grate it if you want, but that would give short stripes, I prefer long and thin stripes.
Add the cabbage over the onions while mixing all the time. When you notice that it has lost nearly half of its volume season with salt (and if you like add a pinch of chili pepper flakes/powder) and a dash of white wine. Close the lid of the pan and turn off the fire. Leave the pan closed until serving time.

That ultimate addition to the cabbage, the dash of wine, makes it exquisite. If you don't believe me, take a look at this blog post about the addition of wine while cooking and the difference that it makes ;-)

Croissant with Nutella

This weekend I baked croissant with Nutella twice, once for breakfast and once as an afternoon snack. It is so easy to prepare these delicious snacks that I wanted to share it here with you. All you need is a piece of round butter dough (here in Italy you find it in every supermarket fresh or frozen, I prefer the fresh one) and a bottle of Nutella.

Cut the dough in 12 equal slices and place a small amount of Nutella at the base of each piece with the help of two coffee spoons.

Roll each piece gently.

Close the ends of each croissant so that Nutella does not run out during baking.

 

Bake in a preheated oven at 180°C for about 12/15 minutes.

Let the mini croissants cool down for about 10 minutes. Then  cover with powder sugar. Buon appetito!