Even prior to our first trip to Ecuador in 2009 Mary and I learned a little about quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) – “The Miracle Food of the Andes.” Quinoa grows wild in the Andes mountains of Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia and was an important part of the diet of the natives for thousands of years. It is used like a grain with flour and granules available in most grocery stores here in Ecuador, but is actually a seed and has many health benefits.
Mary almost always uses a quinoa and rice mixture rather than just plain rice to take advantage of the added nutritional value and we have tried many other unique recipes using quinoa. But recently Mary downloaded a book written by Alyssa Rimmer called, “The Ultimate Quinoa Starter Guide.” That book, together with Ms. Rimmer’s website: http://www.simplyquinoa.com/ has hundreds of creative ways to use quinoa.
Inspired by the recipes she found there, Mary decided to try out some quinoa pizza crust. The recipe is simple with just soaked quinoa seeds, olive oil, water, salt and baking powder. We wanted to make two pizzas, so we doubled the recipe. We mixed it all up in the blender and poured the pancake like batter into two nine inch baking pans. Just before baking, Mary sprinkled on some Italian seasoning to for a little added kick.
We only have a small countertop oven, so we cooked one crust at a time.
After fifteen minutes we flipped the crust over and ten minutes later it looked like this.
Mary decked her pizza out with pizza sauce, mushrooms, green peppers, onions, cheese, and a little chorizo (sausage).
I decided to make mine more of a salad and threw in broccoli, hot peppers, fewer mushrooms, and more chorizo.
It is very hard to describe the taste of quinoa to those who have never tasted it. It tastes something like seasoned whole wheat flour with a nutty flavor. We will let you describe its’ taste in more detail if you wish, but suffice to say here that it was, “Muy Rico!”
Check out Ms. Rimmer’s web site and the recipes there to learn more about enjoying quinoa from here where…
Life is good in Ecuador.
Looks delicious! We are having pizza in Calgary and miss our Friday night at Meier’s pizza!
We miss you guys, but we are sure the pizza in Calgary should be great. Enjoy!
So funny! I’m eating Quinoa and brown rice as I read this post. Not my kids favorite yet but I’m working on it….
Missy – we love quinoa. It adds a rich texture and taste to rice (at least to us). Maybe the kids would like the pizza better! Love you!
we’re making this tonight!
Good for you! We hope it turns out as well as ours did. Different, but tasty and good for you.
We loved it! One substitution we don’t recommend: can’t use wax paper instead of parchment or the dough will melt with the wax. But we had one really good crust and are nibbling at the other, peeling it back from the wax paper. Thanks for turning us onto it!!!
We were lucky to have parchment paper and it worked well. The crust you are nibbling, at should be like a nice nutty cracker. Live and learn! Thanks for the comment.
I have tried quinoa – but never in pizza crust and this sounds and looks GREAT!!!
also – thanks for the link to simply quinoa – going there now
We hope you like it as much as we did. The site, “Simply Quinoa” has many great ideas for healthier eating. We have been watching what we eat now for enough time to see some big advances in our health and weight. Enjoy!
thanks – and looks like some good stuff at that site too – take care and have a nice week
I will have to try that.
Can you get quinoa in Hawaii? Probably at a specialty foods store or a health food store. Hope you all like it.
Great recipe! I really like quinoa and it has protein for vegetarian eaters, too. It can be quite pricey to purchase here so we don’t get it often.
It is grown here and is affordable. We get a rice/quinoa mix that we use quite often.