Have Fun With Your Food: Cheesy Grits Style Quinoa

You guys are going to get tired of the quinoa recipes tonight, but I'm just so insanely proud of them I had to share :).  This first one is Cheesy Grits Style Quinoa (trying to avoid corn as much as possible for the sake of the son's gut health).  It came out tasting creamy with lucious cheesiness to it and even my very picky husband ate it with dinner :).

So, here's the recipe!

Grits-Style Quinoa

• 1/2 Cup Quinoa
• 2 Cups Chicken Broth
• 1 Egg
• 1/3 Cup Heavy Cream (or just use whatever non-dairy you use and then add some arrowroot or other starch to thicken it to about heavy cream consistency :).  You could also just reserve some of your cooking liquid, honestly and use that if you want more of a chickeny flavor to your "grits".
• 1 Cup Grated Cheese (I used a hard sheep's cheese that I really like that you can get at Costco or Three Bears) + a little more for the top (I think I used about 1/3 of a cup).  You could also use whatever non-dairy cheese you like in this too I'd imagine.
• Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1.  Rinse Quinoa for 1/2 hour in plenty of water.  Drain.

2.  Place 2 Cups Chicken broth (I added some salt too as mine was pretty bland), quinoa and at LEAST 2 more cups of water (via MAID in Alaska Method for cooking quinoa) in a saucepan and cook quinoa about 20 minutes or until done (no longer chewy).  Drain.

3.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4.  Move quinoa to an 8x8 baking dish.  Mix egg and cream in a bowl and pour over quinoa.  Pour cheese on top (you can use anywhere from 3/4 of a cup to 1 cup...depending how cheesy you like it) and mix well with other ingredients to combine.  Sprinkle additional cheese on top and sprinkle some salt and pepper over the top.

5.  Bake in 350 degree oven for 1/2 hour or until mixture is set (I honestly think mine cooked a BIT long as the cheese on top was pretty crunchy, but it was still good).  Remove from oven and let sit about 5 minutes.  Serve.

Works really well with shrimp.  I cooked my shrimp in 1 cup of white wine, 3 TBS of salt, about 2 cups of water and about 1 cup of chicken broth as well as about 3 tablespoons of Not Pontiac Pig Powder (I made it and omitted the garlic and doubled up on the onion powder a while back...worked slick).  The shrimp turned out AWESOME and was a great accompaniment to this recipe.