Quinoa Porridge

It has been a month since my last post. To be honest I did not realize that it had been that long. I started all of this to learn how to cook for myself and end my laziness. This past month I ended up falling back into my old habits. If someone else was cooking, I was not going to cook. If no one was cooking, I would not eat. I just did not want to cook anything.

For some odd reason quinoa porridge helped me to get me out of my funk. I visited a friend in Philadelphia a couple weeks ago and we met up for breakfast at Green Eggs Cafe. I ordered the Quinoa porridge with a fresh berry compote and fell in love. It was an amazing sweet porridge. During the last week or so, I found myself vividly daydreaming about eating the porridge. I was swirling around the berries and scooping up the last of the porridge from the bottom of the bowl. I decided to stop daydreaming and try to make the porridge for myself.

I found the menu for the Cafe online and used their description of the porridge to help me recreate it. 

Quinoa Porridge
Agave nectar, cinnamon, cardamom, golden raisins, and cream, topped with fresh berries and fresh berry compote

As I searched for recipes for the quinoa porridge and berry compote I found that I was not the only person that was hoping to recreate the same recipe from Green Eggs Cafe. I picked the recipes picked by those that had attempted to make the same dish and hoped for the best. 

Last night driven by my vivid daydreams I drove through a storm, heavy rain, and flash flood warnings to get to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients I needed. There were several times when I had to stop and turn around because the road in front of me had turned into a mini lake that I was not sure my car could swim through. What should have been a 30 minute shopping trip turned into an hour and 45 minutes. Determination at its best.

The ingredients that I used were:

• 1 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon cardamom
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 tsp agave nectar

I was not able to find regular quinoa in the grocery store, I only found red quinoa. Normally I would have driven to another grocery store to find what I needed, but the road conditions were not optimal for doing so. I also used cream instead of milk because that it was the description on the menu stated. I did not use any raisins because I do not like raisins. 

The directions:

1. Rinse quinoa in a fine-mesh strainer.
2. Combine quinoa, water, cinnamon, cardamom, salt and 1/2 cup of the milk in a pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until most of the liquid has been absorbed.
3. Add the remaining milk and raisins and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes. Porridge should be thick but still with liquid in it (unlike savory uses of quinoa, which generally call for it to be drier). Add honey or agave, and stir to combine.

Boiling the porridge. It looked a little weird to me. 

To create the berry compote the ingredients needed were:

• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 2 tbsp water
• 2 cups of fresh or frozen berries
• 1/4 cup of sugar

The directions: 

1. To make the compote, add the berries to a saucepan and turn the heat to medium low. Next, add the sugar and bring the berries to a gentle boil. Stir occasionally and let simmer for approximately 5 minutes.
2. In the meantime, add the water to the cornstarch and mix together to dissolve. Next, bring the compote to a gentle boil and slowly add the cornstarch until you reach the desired consistency. The compote does not need to be too thick as it will thicken once it cools. Let the compote cook for about 5 minutes on low heat to cook out the flavor of the cornstarch.

I apologize for the blurry photo. I didn’t want to post it, but decided that my first attempt at a berry compote should be shown.

The finished product :)

I feel as if I set my expectations way too high for my first attempt at making this. The berry compote actually came out really well. I was afraid I was going to make a mess out of it, but it was the best part of the dish. Next time I won’t add as much cornstarch because it was a little thick.

Now for the actual porridge, not my best work. Maybe there will be a big difference when I use regular quinoa instead of red quinoa. Instead of trying to be fancy like the cafe I should have just used milk instead of cream. Just a few things to consider, if and when I try again.

Kind of bummed how this turned out :(