Ancient Harvest Quinoa - Gluten Free

I have a variety of gluten- free Quinoa in my pantry. I have Quinoa flakes and flour from Ancient Harvest and organic Quinoa grain from Trader Joe's. I have made exactly one food item from each and didn't explore further. I really enjoyed the Quinoa with garlic and vegetables that I made with the grains. Although, my kids... I've read that you have to offer new foods to kids at least seven times before they will like it, that leaves six times to go.

NASA is experimenting with different varieties of Quinoa for growing in space. The nutritional profile of quinoa is excellent as it contains protein, fiber, calcium, etc. You can see the nutritional profile of quinoa at Ancient Harvest's website. www.quinoa.net

I chose my box of Ancient Harvest Quinoa Flakes as my test subject. Ancient Harvest has several recipes on the back of the box that seemed like they had potential. One was for Quinoa peanut butter cookies and the other for Quinoa banana muffins. Since, I've never made these before I made sure to cut both recipes in half before starting to work.

Crispy Quinoa Peanut Butter Cookies - Gluten Free

1/4 cup honey
2 tsp + 1/2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 stick butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup brown rice flour
6 Tb Quinoa Flakes
1/4 tsp Vanilla
1/8 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
Optional: 1/4 cup nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix the honey, sugar, butter, peanut butter and vanilla in a medium bowl until creamy. Combine the dry ingredients in another bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and beat until well blended. Drop by rounded teaspoons on the parchment paper. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes. Cool.

As a group the taste testers said these were too sweet. The taste of the honey over powered the other flavors and lingered in your mouth. I agreed with my family on this one. This recipe has potential, but it needs adjusting for sweetness. Also, I think almond butter might lend a better flavor than the peanut butter.

Banana Quinoa Muffins

1/4 cup Quinoa Flour
1/4 cup Quinoa Flakes
1 Tb Honey
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 banana
1 egg
1 tsp brown sugar (not called for in original recipe)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper cups. Blend all the dry ingredients together. In another bowl blend the banana, egg and honey. Then slowly add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture. Pour the mixture into the muffin cups. This 1/2 recipe will make 4 muffins. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until browned.

My kids didn't care for the muffins. They said they were a bit rubbery. I agreed they were rather unpleasantly rubbery. Although I thought the flavor of the muffin was pretty good. The rubbery texture could have been caused by my putting some water in the unused muffin cups. It was interesting to see how the quinoa was almost steamed by the little bit of water in the cups.

I had one for breakfast the next day and toasted it. It came out beautifully and wasn't rubbery at all. I put a little butter on it and shared it with my Sheltie. She thought it was scrumptious.