Leaning Vegetarian

This is another recipe from the terrific Veganomicon.

The version Rachelle made a couple weeks ago is here on the Quinoa page – it has plain quinoa; today’s is made with red quinoa.

I was tickled to be able to go out and pick some of the coriander seed from our garden – there’s one advantage to being slow on the cilantro harvest; you get coriander seed.

After starting off by sauteeing the onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil, we added a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, cumin, coriander (crushed), salt, and pepper, and then the red quinoa. When that had cooked a bit we added the broth and chickpeas and set that to boil.

The recipe calls for 18 minutes to simmer/steam while the quinoa absorbs the liquid – I found it took much longer. Just keep an eye on it, stir it every few minutes, and wait until the texture is to your liking. It’ll gradually get fluffy.

Our meat-eaters have this as a side dish, and it’s our main course. I’m tempted to add a bit of chile to add a little bit of heat as well (yes, I am a hot food fan), but cooking the quinoa in the spices gives it a nice depth of flavor.

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