First, please remember to enter the giveaway for Picky Bars! Info in this post. Giveaway closes on Thursday and winner is announced on Friday.

Also, I have a new story on CultureMap about making homemade granola. Link here.

Sunday was busy in my kitchen, and no desserts came out. That’s a good thing. I am still hooked on Terry Walters’ book Clean Food and found a recipe for corn chowder that is “cleaner” than traditional chowder. To go with this, I made Kale Chips because I found kale at the grocery store for 99 cents. A gigantic bunch of organic kale for under one dollar. It was so big, it took up a whole shelf in my refrigerator. Don’t say eating green and organic is expensive. 99 cents!

I also found black quinoa at the grocery (I’m talking about Central Market if you live in Texas) in the bulk bins and wanted to try this recipe for Black Quinoa Pudding with Blueberries that Emily made last week.

Here’s the details about all of the recipes.

Black Quinoa Breakfast Pudding

Emily made this recipe last week that is a spinoff of rice pudding using black quinoa. Quinoa, which I’ve cooked with before, is a grain but very high in protein and very good for you. This dish was packed with protein, sweetness, and a berry flavor. I ate it for breakfast one day, but it is definitely great as a snack or dessert too. Quinoa comes in many colors, but I hadn’t tried black before. It’s very mysterious.

Ingredients:

I cut the original recipe in half because it was just me that was going to try this, and I didn’t want to use a whole pint of blueberries. I also added bananas to the mix.

This would serve 2 for a breakfast, 3 for a snack or dessert probably.

• 1/2 C dry black quinoa
• 3/4 C water
• 1/2 C light coconut milk (I could only find the large containers of Silk so I’ll be drinking coconut milk with cereal and in smoothies this month)
• 1/2 C your milk on hand or soymilk
• 1/8 C honey
• 1/2 C blueberries
• 1/2 banana, sliced

Instructions:

• First, black quinoa is cooked the same way as other quinoa, so fill a pot with 3/4 C water and add the 1/2 C quinoa, adjust according to how much you do. Cook and stir until water is dissolved.
• In a separate soup pot, combine coconut milk and regular milk and honey, stir until honey dissolves and milk starts to simmer.
• When quinoa is cooked, add to the milk pot and stir for a few minutes so milk can start to thicken.
• Add blueberries and banana and remove from heat.
• Pour into a bowl and refrigerate for a few hours. I stirred every so often because the quinoa tends to sink to the bottom.

I ate a cup of this for breakfast and it was a nice change from traditional breakfast. The coconut milk was new to me too, with its strong naturally sweet coconut flavor. And the quinoa adds a nice nutty and chewy texture. I liked the addition of bananas as well.

I did not think that the mixture thickened as much as I expected, and I also let mine sit overnight. I think I expected it to become more like a drippy yogurt but it was still very milky.

The color of mine was more purple so the blueberries definitely influenced that. Emily’s did not look so purple in her photos. You could wait a little longer on the stovetop before adding blueberries. I would try that next time.

Regardless, it was a packed with protein and was a filling dish. Colorful too.

Other recipes using quinoa:

• Quinoa Tabouleh
• Quinoa with veggies, dates and apples
• Quinoa with craisins and feta cheese

Corn Chowder

Kale Chips

I have made these once before, but like most things, it takes time to perfect.

This time, I made them right when I wanted to eat them instead of letting them sit for a while. Keeping them hot out of the oven is important. I also tore them into bite sized pieces before cooking, because they are very hard to cut. Tearing the stem off is also important too. Here’s how it works:

Ingredients:

• Gigantic bunch of kale
• salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika

Instructions:

(see this post for some step by step pictures of kale chips)

• Tear leaves off of the stem and place in bowl of water to clean. Tear into small pieces and dry very well.
• Lay on a cooking sheet sprayed with cooking spray. You can crowd them on, they’ll shrink up.
• Season with cooking spray on top, then salt, pepper and garlic powder.
• Bake at 350* for about 10 minutes, but watch so they don’t burn. They should be crispy but not burnt on the edges.
• Season with paprika out of the oven and eat once cooled.

These are great as a side dish, in a salad, and since it’s just greens, you can eat a lot. It’s also a dark leafy green, which is the most nutritious kind.

Kale has a kind of bitter taste and can be chewy if you eat a stalk. The seasonings and tearing from the stalk helps this.

Other recipes with kale: Lean Green Salad

It was a busy  Sunday in the kitchen, but that’s my kind of Sunday. It’s great because all of these recipes made more than enough for one day. Cook once, enjoy for days.

What’s your favorite thing to cook on Sundays?

Quick plug: If you like my blog, would you nominate me for the Women’s Healthy Blog Roll? Click here. If you’re a blogger, let me know and I’ll reciprocate too.