Noms!

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I’ve been trying to eat a little healthier lately – this is tremendously difficult for me because there is not a single fried or super processed piece of food that I don’t like. Also, whenever I’m grumpy (which is probably 80% of the time), I crave sugary carb loaded processed food. I also barely have any discipline – If you put delicious food in front of me, I will eat it.

Nonetheless, as I’ve matured, I’ve come to see the value in a healthy balanced diet, or really, a healthy balanced everything. This isn’t just for the obvious vain reasons, but also for my general well-being.

Because I have the appetite of a bear that’s just woken from hibernation, I pretty much always need to snack and I’ve found a delightful healthy snack to curb my midday munchies. 

QUINOA CUPS!

I first found the recipe from here (I was trying to find a breakfast substitute for my normal Nutella but let’s be serious here, I am NEVER giving up Nutella), and I tried it out using spinach and it was good but tasted a little too healthy, so now I use ham and mushrooms and that’s much yummier, but seriously there are so many options, I might try broccoli one day although it may give the quiche a kind of moldy appearance. 

You can mix up the proportions but I guess you'll need a proportionate amount of eggs to glue it all together

 The Alex style recipe:

• Three quarter cup of uncooked quinoa – this will become about 2 cups when cooked
• Half cup of diced up ham
• One cup of chopped mushrooms
• Three-quarters cup of chopped onion (it really depends on how much onion I have and feel like chopping)
• One cup of shredded Cheddar cheese
• Two tablespoons of shredded Parmesan cheese
• Three to four eggs (the original says two whole eggs and two egg whites which probably would be healthier but I don’t know what I would then do with two leftover egg yolks and also I don’t know how to do that fancy egg separating thing using the shells)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Get cookin':

1.       Cook the quinoa and let it cool

2.       Chop the ham, mushrooms and onion, shred the cheese, beat the eggs

3.       Put everything into a bowl and mix it in evenly

I chop everything quite finely so it sticks together better

I use mixed quinoa (black and white) but all white probably would look nicer and less like it has ants

4.       Pre-heat the oven to 175 - 180 degrees Celsius 

Sweet Breville* oven of gloriousness

5.       Put the mix into an oiled muffin/cupcake baking tray

Carefully scoop the mix into the tray - Don't drop a single grain, quinoa is EXPENSIVE

6.       Bake in oven for 15 – 20 minutes

7.       Enjoy the deliciousness (actually, might be best to remove it from the tray and cool it a bit or risk burning your mouth. True story.  

Swivel and scoop 'em out

Get in ma belly!

Not only are they healthy, they’re easy to make (chop chop chop mix mix bake NOMS), easy to store (in mouth like a hamster, or in a fridge/freezer for another day) and obvs easy to eat (pop in mouth, chew, hot or cold, it tastes good!)

There are a few cons to making this of course, mainly the price of quinoa (but with my cupcake try of about 2 inch diameter per cup, I make about 24 cups so it seems reasonable I think) and the fact that the things need to be chopped up, which can be a little time-consuming. I’m considering getting a processor because I’m committed to making these babies.

Anyway, I urge you to try it out, and go crazy with the variety of fillings you could possibly use then let me know how it turns out.

Thanks for reading! 

* No seriously, this toaster oven mousie bought for momster is DA BOMB. It cooks so evenly, is so easy to use, have a ton of cool settings (like reheat, warm, bake, toast, grill, roast, zumba... ok maybe not that last one) is large enough to roast a chicken. It's a really great addition to the kitchen for those who are oven-challenged. My regular stove connected oven sucks.