Creamy Power Breakfast Porridge

Quinoa with Coconut Milk

Amanda Love's Cooking Delicious, Healthy Seasonal Recipes from the "The Barefoot Cook" for October

I call this a power breakfast cereal because it is very digestible and rich in nutrients, unlike most other breakfast cereals, which contain hard to digest gluten-containing grains. All of these ingredients are rich in protein and amino acids and are gluten free so this should be a safe alternative for people trying to avoid the common allergen, gluten. Quinoa, (pronounced Keen-WAH), while relatively new to the United States, has been cultivated in the Andean mountain regions of Peru, Chile and Bolivia for over 5000 years and is one of the few grains that boasts a full amino acid ratio profile. Quinoa means "mother grain" in the Inca language. This crop was a staple food of the Inca people and remains an important food crop for their descendants, the Quechua and Aymara peoples who live in rural regions.

Quinoa cereal photo by Amazing Almonds via Flickr

Amaranth, a very powerful grain, is also rich in nutrients and amino acids. I have also seen amaranth sprout in a compost pile after being cooked, a very powerful grain, indeed. Millet, having been consumed in Africa for centuries, is a very alkalizing grain. Adding the sunflower seeds and flax seeds gives this cereal an interesting texture, additional flavor and nutrients. Soaking is essential to make this cereal more digestible. Cook extra and warm up each time you eat breakfast and you will have breakfast figured out for several days.

Ingredients:

1 cup Quinoa

Optional additions: 

¼ cup Amaranth

¼ cup Millet

1/8 cup Sunflower Seeds

1/8 cup Flax Seeds

4 cups water (2 cups for soaking and 2 cups for cooking)

2 Tablespoons Whey, yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, lemon juice or apple cider vinegar (for soaking)

2 cups Coconut Milk

2 Tablespoons Coconut Oil or Butter

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt or more to taste

Toppings (optional, to taste):

maple syrup

butter

other sweeteners

fruit

Directions:

Soak quinoa and other optional ingredients overnight with 2 cups water (or more to cover) and whey. In the morning, rinse mixture. Bring 2 cups water and coconut milk to a boil with salt and add grain/nut mixture. If you are adding additional ingredients besides the quinoa itself, add 1 more cup of water. Slowly simmer while stirring periodically for about 15-20 minutes. Add coconut oil or butter, nutmeg and additional salt to taste. Top with maple syrup or preferred sweetener and more butter. Enjoy!

Multi-color varieties of quinoa, photo from U of New Hampshire

There are many types of quinoa grown in South America, where it is native, and universities in North America are working to establish it as a crop here. For more background about the New World crop, here is a 2013 Guardian article about the crop in Peru and Bolivia.

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