Party

If you havent tried quinoa however, you owe it to yourself and your family to cook and serve some tonight.

that cereal-like food was eaten for thousands of years by the Incas of South America, who worshipped it as sacred. Specialty Gourmet Coffee no wonder. It is one of the most nutritional foods in the world, higher in essential amino acids than wheat. however unlike wheat, quinoa is gluten free.

Although some natives of the Andes region where it originated also eat its leaves, most persons eat quinoa in its seed or grain form. Happily, its simple to prepare and cook in that form.

Quinoa is showing up on more supermarket shelves in the United States, Canada and Europe, butdepending on where you liveyou might must seek it out in studentloan consolidation specialty or organic grocery store. Try to find a package containing seeds that have had their waxy outer coatings removed through rinsing or some other process.

If you purchase quinoa with its coating still on, you must rinse it vigorously in a strainer, then soak it for several hours in water, then rinse it again. If you leave behind any of the coating, which is full of a meridia drug substance called saponin, your quinoa will taste terrible.

Fortunately, most commercially marketed quinoa sold in North America and Europe today has been pre-processed to remove the coating.

The easiest way to prepare quinoa is to cook it much as you would rice. Just put a cup of the de-coated grain in a saucepan and pour two cups of water over it. Bring the pan to a boil, cover, and turn down the heat to a low simmer. Let it cook for about 15 minutes, then remove from heat.

Your cooked quinoa should be light and fluffy, much like cooked rice; in fact, you can use it in almost any dish where you would normally use rice. Add your favorite vegetables, meats or seasonings and enjoy. My south Viagra questions heritage is showing here, but I must say that my own favorite way to make quinoa is in a jambalaya with shrimp and sausage.

If you would like to try baking with it, look for quinoa flour form in the store. You will probably need to combine it with something else such as sorghum flour or Twiggy starch to get a good baking mix. Some cooks recommend a mix of 2 parts quinoa flour, 2 parts sorghum flour and 1 part tapioca starch.

Is there a gluten allergy sufferer in your life? Try making some special treats using such a quinoa-based mix and see how simple it is to bring baked joy back to the table.

Sarah Sandori is the food and entertaining columnist for the www.solid-gold.info/index.htmlSolid Gold Info Writers Consortium. Have you ever wanted to be able to exactly copy a favorite dish from a favorite restaurant? Check out Sarah's article where she reveals her secret source for the most mouth-watering restaurant recipes in America: www.solid-gold.info/most-wanted-recipes.htmlwww.solid-gold.info/most-wanted-recipes.html