Quinoa - Sunday, 21st September 2014

I do like eating quinoa.  It adds a very good crunch to  my breakfast cereal bowl.  Seeds are good to eat and quinoa is gluten-free and naturally good for your calcium intake.  This is particularly good for me because I use Lact

ofree milk for all of my milk intake.  I don't really like their Lactofree cheese and have reduced my cheese intake quite drastically, just enjoying a little white Stilton with apricots, sometimes. and adding grated Parmesan cheese whenever applicable, to salads and other dishes.

The other day I made a pretty good hash of cooking my quinoa in boiling water and - drastically over-cooked it!  Just like years ago, I can still over-cook the seed with very little trouble.  So now my choice of cooking method is to dry-fry the seed in a small saute pan, over a fairly moderate heat and just until it is a light nut-brown colour.  When it's cooled, I tip the "toasted" seed into a small lidded pot and keep it handy with my sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, pumpkin seeds, and golden linseeds.

I go to Tesco for my quinoa which they sell in packets of 300g for £2.15. making their price for lkg. £7.17.  This price compares well with Amazon's Organic quinoa, selling at £6.99 per lkg. bag, from Whole Foods Online Ltd. for there is a postage charge of £2.99 with this product.

I also investigated Merchant Gourmet's quinoa product, more expensive, to my way of thinking, at £16.65 for a 1kg packet containing 6 x 250g individual bags, with free postage, which is very good.

Then there is The British Quinoa Company Ltd. with a Face Book  Page.  They were recently featured on Country File, when they fed John Craven with their own Quinoa Chocolate Cake, the recipe for which now appears on their Page.  I don't know their sales method or price range and have asked for this information.  This is a Family farming business in Shropshire, with their crop of quinoa grown as a trial by son, Stephen Jones.  You may also follow them on Twitter, as I have just done!

The above info comes from my online research today and quoted details are given as correct now, at posting time.

There is plenty of information to be garnered online for suppliers, newspaper articles and cooks comments and helpful hints.  Tesco sell Quinoa, Waitrose sell their own range of quinoa products and Sainsbury's sell Merchant Gourmet products.

So far, I'm only buying the white quinoa but looking out for supplies of the red and black varieties.

 Daisy  

PS These are my new Banana Quinoa Flapjacks made today for a tea-time treat...!