Appley Keen-Wah…

I’m sorry you don’t speak Korean… I don’t either, I’m just really sorry that you all don’t… maybe then you could read my blog titles a teensy bit better.  Translated to English, the one above is a distant cuzzin of Peachy Keen followed by a baby crying… or… and this might make more sense… I’m about to talk about my breakfasting adventures… Quinoa (aka Keen-Wah) being at the top of that list.

Quinoa is supposedly a great source of protein… but it also tastes like moldy feet to me.  I have to say it’s an acquired taste and by golly I’m doing my durndest to acquire that taste.  The first forray was not successful… some weird cold salad concoction with some weird dressing on it… which was just weird… and gross… and did I mention weird?  So that sucked… moving on.  I then found some recipes for the “lazy” cook wherein you could make one thing and doctor it up to use for 2 different meals.  Slap a sticker on my fanny pack and call me Georgette… that one’s for me!  The first meal was a breakfast… a quinoa-meal of sorts.  I made me up a double batch of quinoa on Sunday night and Monday morning all I had to do was throw a few things in a bowl and call it a meal.

The ingredients in this bowl?

1/2 cup Almond milk due to my lactose issue (or plain milk or soy milk or milk straight from the udder of a goat thing)
1/2 cup cooked Quinoa
1/8 cup golden raisins
1/2 of a Granny Smith apple (chopped)
1 – 2 tsp. Honey (darling)
Sprinkle of cinnamon

I microwaved the milk and the quinoa before I added anything else just because I prefer mine warm.  The trick here is to mix the quinoa with yummerific stuff… then it’s totally tastee… and under 300 calories per serving if you use the Almond milk.  Quinoa might have almost won me over with this dish.  But then I went and made the 2nd part of the recipe for dinner.  This one included craisins, cashews, quinoa, and a dressing that included lemon, honey, and olive oil.  On a scale of 1 to Krispy Kreme donut, I’d give it a Twinkie.  It was okay if I ate each bite with all the components on the fork, but I wasn’t rushing out to make this again.  Such is the life of a professional chef chic trying new foods.

My second favorite find… Southwestern Blend Egg Beaters.  Oh my fiesta in my salivary glands!  I usually cook plain egg whites with cheese and salsa and sometimes veggies chopped up and thrown in… and I was getting SO bored… but then I came across these suckers!  GLORIOUS!  I’m dead serious.  If I could I’d eat them 3 times a day.

It has little chunks of peppers mixed in there and Southwestern spices.  Here’s what you do, get you about 1/2 cup of this in a pan, scramble them up, sprinkle you some cheese on there, toast you up an English muffin and voila, you have yourself a southwestern egg mcmuffin without the micks and with fewer calories.  Throw in some fruit and you’re filled up for a good 3 or so hours!  They have other flavors too, which just makes me the most excited chick on the breakfast block!  Bring it, cholesterol-free beaters!

Question of the Day:  Have you ever eaten Quinoa?  What did you think?  Any favorite breakfast recipes?  

Y’all best appreciate the fact that this beautiful thing was covering up an ugly thing… Blimpie!?!?!?  As if!  Also, I risked my life to take this picture… bees galore on that tree and I am all sorts of allergic to bee stings.  Thank goodness I wasn’t wearing my cow crud perfume.