Curried Quinoa

I'm probably the absolutely last person to jump on this quinoa bandwagon.  I felt a little like that with couscous too.  Oh well, at least I've discovered it at all right?

I struggle with getting dinner made during the days leading up to a big party we throw.  I'm busy with all sorts of things during the day on top of all the normal mom stuff.  Dinner tends to be an afterthought.  It usually happens with an "Oh, crap" moment when I look at the clock and its 3:30 PM and I haven't even thought about what's for dinner.

Today, quinoa saved the day.  Did you know quinoa is a complete protein and contains twelve essential amino acids?  I didn't, until I ordered a bag of organic quinoa from Nuts.com and it came with a cute little note about the product complete with cooking instructions and fun facts.  Okay, I can dig quinoa.  

I threw together this recipe and it was so fast and tasted so good I have to share.

Curried Quinoa
3 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups organic quinoa
1 Tbsp curry powder
1 small onion chopped
3 cloves garlic minced
1 small carrot chopped
1/3 cup dried black figs chopped (cranberries would be good too)
1/3 cup walnuts chopped
1/3 cup shredded or chopped chicken
2 Tbsp fresh coriander leaves
1/2 lime

Bring the broth and the quinoa to a boil in a medium saucepan.  Once boiling turn it down to low, add the onion, garlic and curry, cover with a lid and let it simmer.  About 5 minutes later add the chopped carrot.  Once the quinoa starts soaking up most of the water you can stir the mixture and then add the walnuts, figs, chicken, and coriander.  Squeeze the lime juice into the saucepan and stir.  Turn the stove top off and keep lid on quinoa until ready to serve.

My favorite thing about quinoa is that it stays moist while soaking up the flavors.  It's not dry.  You could surely convert this recipe into a vegetarian dish by using vegetable broth instead of chicken and not adding any additional meat.  I'm kind of excited to try quinoa in a million other ways now.