quinoa

Vine Recipe: Quinoa base pizza

| Rhiannon
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This week we’ve finished off Alternative Pizza Month over on Vine, with a quinoa based pizza. I first came across this idea in Deliciously Ella’s book, and although I’ve never been a fan of quinoa, I’ve slowly started coming around. We decided to give it a try and see how it would turn out.

Quinoa base pizza ingredients

It felt a bit strange to bake this in a quiche tin, but actually it was the perfect option. The base is a bit squidgy – there’s no way you could put it out on a pizza tray with holes underneath, as it will just drop through, so bear that in mind. Even with greasing it up it did stick a little, but once we got a pizza cutter underneath it came out just fine. It’s odd, but you can’t necessarily tell the quinoa is there unless you concentrate. Otherwise, the flavours of the toppings really dominate the base, so while it’s not an exact match for a “normal” pizza, it is a good alternative.

Quinoa base pizza

It tasted pretty nice to be honest, and I would be happy to make it again. There is certainly a health benefit for choosing this base over a normal dough base, which is great for those (like us!) who want to eat healthy but just love pizza way too much to stop eating it.

Quinoa base pizza

We did of course Vine the recipe, so here’s the video. Be sure to click through and take a look at our other Vines if you enjoy it!

Here’s the recipe if you would like to recreate it yourself:

Quinoa base pizza
Serves 2
A pizza base made from quinoa - perfect for gluten free diets!
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Ingredients
  1. 195g quinoa
  2. 1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
  3. 2 teaspoons pasta herbs
  4. Tomato puree
  5. Cheddar cheese (grated)
  6. Cheddar with chilli (crumbled)
  7. 3 chestnut mushrooms
  8. 1/2 red pepper
  9. 1/2 red onion
Instructions
  1. Soak the quinoa in cold water overnight or all day long
  2. Drain any water from the quinoa and add to a blender with apple cider vinegar, pasta herbs, and a pinch of salt
  3. Blend until a smooth dough forms (it might take a bit longer than you expect!)
  4. Grease a pizza pan or cake tin with olive oil
  5. Place the mixture into the pan and smooth out to an even thickness
  6. Bake at 210c for 20 minutes - you'll see a big transformation to a darker and firm base
  7. Remove from the oven and spread tomato puree with the back of a spoon
  8. Add all toppings and return to oven
  9. Remove from oven when cheese is melted
  10. Serve!
Adapted from Deliciously Ella
Adapted from Deliciously Ella
VegBurge https://vegburge.com/
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Vine Recipe: Stuffed Butternut Squash with Pesto Quinoa

| Rhiannon
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Starting this week, J and I decided to put together a more structured schedule for our Vine posts. Every week from now on you’ll see one Vine plus the recipe for it here. We will also be sticking to themes each month, though this first post is just clearing out the last video we had left before we can get on to July’s theme.

Without further ado, here’s the Vine for our roasted and stuffed butternut squash with pesto quinoa:

And the recipe is as follows…

Roasted butternut squash with pesto quinoa
Serves 2
Roasted butternut squash stuffed with pesto and quinoa
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Total Time
1 hr 10 min
Total Time
1 hr 10 min
Ingredients
  1. One medium butternut squash, cut in half
  2. 120g quinoa
  3. 2 tablespoons tahini
  4. 1 jar pesto (you may not need it all)
Instructions
  1. Cook the butternut squash at 180c for around half an hour
  2. Scoop out the seeds with a spoon
  3. Drizzle oil over the squash and rub BBQ herbs over the flesh
  4. Put the squash back in the over for another half an hour (it may take longer if it is bigger)
  5. Put the quinoa into a pan with boiling water, around a double water to quinoa ratio.
  6. Add a pinch of salt and cook for 10-15 mins until the water has been absorbed.
  7. Stir in the two tablespoons of tahini.
  8. Stir in the pesto as needed - taste to see how much to add, anywhere from half a small jar works.
  9. When the squash is soft, stuff the hole with the quinoa and pesto mix, and then layer the rest over the top.
Notes
  1. We served it with roasted kale, and mushrooms with cheese.
Adapted from Deliciously Ella
Adapted from Deliciously Ella
VegBurge https://vegburge.com/
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Recipe: Deliciously Ella Quinoa and Turmeric Fritters

| Rhiannon
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I absolutely love the Deliciously Ella book, and have been regarding it as something as a kitchen bible ever since we got it. Naturally I had to try her quinoa and turmeric fritters! I’m not usually a fan of quinoa, but all the same, they looked great in the book. We decided to give them a go and serve them up as burgers.

Deliciously Ella Quinoa Burger

I won’t share the full recipe here, as it is not up on her blog, and it’s really worth buying the book. Suffice to say that quinoa and turmeric are two of the main ingredients. It also includes sweet potato, which definitely swayed me towards trying it out. The burgers come into shape pretty well, and once baked, they held that form without crumbling.

Deliciously Ella Quinoa Burger

I baked them in the oven and then added some cheese on top for the last stretch. For the last couple of burgers left over from the batch, I cooked them differently the next day. Instead of putting them back in the oven, I fried them up. At the last minute I added some thai sweet chilli sauce, which really sweetened them up and made them a great accompaniment for noodles. That’s the image you can see at the top of this post.

Deliciously Ella Quinoa Burger

The texture was actually really strange, withe the grainy quinoa next to the smoothness of the rest of the mixture. It was also a bit of an odd taste. Even after having them at two different meals in two different ways, I’m still not sure I can say whether I liked them or not. The turmeric flavouring was very strong, but so was the quinoa taste. The way that it blended together was just odd. I’m tempted to try them again, which certainly suggests I enjoyed them at least somewhat! It’s really hard to describe the way that they tasted. I’ve never had anything like that before. They are at least fascinating, if not as good as some of the other recipes in the book!

Deliciously Ella Quinoa Burger
On the VegBurge scale, I give this…
Taste – 5/10
Price – 4/10
Rest of experience – 6/10
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