Breakfast Quinoa

I love quinoa.  It's so versatile, healthy, and extremely filling.  This is one of my favorite things to make for breakfast.  It comes from Jessica Seinfeld's book Double Delicious.

Her cookbooks (she has two) are all about sneaking healthy food into your meals so kids eat them.  Obviously, I purchased them because I like to try healthy things.  This was one of the first recipes I tried and it's a winner!  Plus, I usually always have the ingredients on hand so it's a great last minute breakfast when I'm wanting to switch it up.

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups water
1 cup quinoa
1 tablespoon trans-fat-free soft tub margarine spread (I use real butter)
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1 tablespoon pure maple syrup
1/3 cup light vanilla soy milk or nonfat (skim) milk
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of salt
6 tablespoons pure maple syrup, divided for garnish
6 teaspoons chopped walnuts or almonds, divided for garnish

In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Meanwhile, rinse the quinoa in cold water and strain.  (Check your quinoa package.  Some of them are pre rinsed and you can skip this step) Add the quinoa to the boiling water and reduce heat to a simmer. Cook for 12 minutes, uncovered. Remove the pot from the heat, cover, and let sit for 5 minutes.

In a separate pot, melt the margarine. Stir in the sweet potato puree, 1 tablespoon of the maple syrup, soy milk, cinnamon and salt. When the quinoa has finished cooking, stir in the sweet potato mixture. Divide into bowls and top with a teaspoon each of maple syrup and nuts.

Nutritional information: Calories: 186, Carbohydrate: 30 g, protein: 5.5 g, total fat: 5 g, saturated fat: 0.5 g, sodium: 100 mg, fiber: 3g.

I just mash my sweet potato.  You can add water and use a mixer to really blend it up, but I'm not trying to hide anything so mashing it with a fork works just fine for me. 

 

Here is everything all stirred up waiting for the quinoa.

 

Quinoa stirred in.  It looks much prettier in person. 

 The recipe says it's for six servings.  That's just hilarious.  Unless you eat like Victoria Beckham, you'll get three servings out of this, not six.  (Which equals 372 calories-still a great, healthy start to the most important meal of the day)  I made this recipe tonight while dinner was in the oven and placed it in three to go containers and breakfast is served for the next few days!  All i have to do is microwave it and pour some more syrup on top.