Today I wanted to share a healthy, simple lunch idea with you guys: baked quinoa and millet patties. They taste so good inside a warmed pita bread alongside a simple salad with lemony vinaigrette.
I had a very virtuous Sunday this weekend. My plans to spend all day at the May Day Parade were scuppered when it got cancelled due to weather (we’re having April showers in May…) and so I was left with not a single plan for the day.
First, I made up a batch of Warm Breakfast Quinoa for the week. Halo shining, I decided while I was at it I’d prepare some healthy lunches too. This never happens – instead everyday I scramble around my kitchen trying to find something that my co-workers won’t judge me for eating as I rush out of the door (side note: bringing a LOT of cookies to work helps avoid the squinty-eyed weird looks from happening too often; being the Bringer of Baked Goods is a good thing).
I made up half of the recipe below, adapting Heidi Swanson’s original to use millet as well as quinoa and parsley instead of dill (which I hate). They taste excellent with a healthy dash of sriracha sauce and a couple of them would go down a treat at breakfast time with a fried egg and some wilted greens.
Baked Quinoa and Millet Patties
adapted from 101 Cookbooks
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups / 6 oz /170 g cooked quinoa, at room temperature*
- 1 1/4 cups / 6 oz/ 170 g cooked millet at room temperature*
- 5 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
- 1/3 cup/ .5 oz /15 g finely chopped fresh chives
- 1/3 cup /.5 oz /15 g finely chopped fresh parsley
- 1 cup / 1.5 oz /45 g finely chopped kale
- 1 yellow onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup / 3.5 oz /100 g bread crumbs, plus more if needed
- water or a bit of flour, if needed
- 1/3 cup / .5 oz / 15 g crumbled feta cheese
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400F / 200C.
- Combine the quinoa, millet, eggs, and salt in a medium bowl. Stir in the chives, parsley, kale, onion, garlic, and cumin. Stir well.
- Add the baking powder and bread crumbs, stir, and let sit for a few minutes so the crumbs can absorb some of the moisture.
- Gently stir in the feta.
- Form mixture into twelve 1-inch / 2.5cm thick patties with your hands. It seems best to err on the very moist side to avoid a not-overly-dry patty, but you can add more bread crumbs, a bit at a time, to firm up the mixture, if you need to. If the mixture is too dry then add a bit more beaten egg or water to moisten it.
- Arrange the patties with a bit of space between each on a Silpat-lined (or greased) baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the bottoms are brown. Flip and bake for another 5 minutes.
- Enjoy hot, or allow to cool to room temperature on a cooling rack. Makes about a dozen patties.
*To cook a batch of quinoa and millet: Combine 1 cups/ 6 oz/1700 g each of well-rinsed uncooked quinoa and millet with 3 cups / 700 ml water and 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, cover, decrease the heat, and simmer for 25 to 30 minutes, until the quinoa and millet mixture is tender and you can see the little quinoa curlicues.
This is the second recipe this week that I’ve adapted from Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours. I am completely and utterly inspired and smitten. The list on my phone of ‘to-make’s is growing worryingly large.
I bought this book for myself a couple of weeks ago, in need of some baking inspiration. I knew that it wasn’t just new recipes that I was looking for but different approaches.
This book is a series of adventures in baking with different whole grains – grains that are unfamiliar and exciting to me – yes whole wheat, rye, and buckwheat but also kamut, spelt, and teff. These are flavour profiles for a grown up palette and they offer complex, deep, satisfying flavours.
Boyce has put so much work into creating recipes that often combine more commonly used grains (all purpose/plain flour, for example) with something less familiar and unique to create absolute gems of recipes that never compromise on flavour or texture.
This lovely loaf (which I adapted from her muffin recipe) is rich and cheesy with a perfect crunch from it’s cheesy, bubbly crust. It’s both tangy and buttery-creamy from the Gruyère and sour cream. The combination of green onions sauteed in butter and toasted cumin seeds takes it to another level of deliciousness. It made an excellent accompaniment to a bowl of spicy turkey chili but I managed to nibble on several slices with nary a bowl of chili in sight…it’s more than good enough to enjoy alone.
Corn and Gruyère Bread
adapted from Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
Ingredients
- 1-2 bunch green onions, trimmed and rinsed
- 2 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- salt and pepper
- 5.3oz/ 2 cups Gruyère cheese, grated
For the dry mix:
- 1 cup corn flour
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp kosher salt
For the wet mix:
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream
- 2 eggs
- 2 oz (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9×5 inch loaf tin with butter and set aside.
- Thinly slice the green onions, using the entire onion from greenest to whitest ends. Toast the cumin seeds in a frying pan over medium heat until they start to pop, smell fragrant and turn golden-brown, about 2 minutes. Add the tbsp of butter to the same pan and melt it into the cumin seeds. It’s going to smell amazing. Add the green onions, season with salt and pepper, and saute over medium heat until soft and tender, another 2 minutes. Scrape onions onto a plate to cool.
- Sift the corn flour, all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, dark brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl. Tip any coarse bits of flour that get stuck in the sieve into the mixing bowl too. Add the grated Gruyère and the cooled onion-cumin-butter mixture, stirring to combine.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the sour cream, eggs, and melted butter until well combined. Using a rubber spatula, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently combine.
- Scoop the batter into the greased loaf pan and bake in the oven for 45-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted to the centre comes out clean. The top of the loaf will be golden-brown. Remove from the oven and leave in the loaf pan on a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Up-end the loaf pan to remove the bread and let it continuing cooling slightly on the rack. Serve warm with a bowl of spicy turkey chili. It will keep for a couple of days in an airtight container (perfect if you make a big batch of chili and want extra bread for lunch leftovers).
This might be my new go-to cookie recipe. Dan gets a bit cross whenever I suggest anything other than the Original Toll House cookie recipe and I have to agree to an extent – when making simple chocolate chip cookies, that recipe is a classic for a good reason. These cookies are a whole different beast.
Whole wheat flour, molasses-y dark brown sugar, sea salt, and great quality bittersweet chunks of chocolate. They have an extremely deep flavour with a rich nuttiness from the whole wheat flour and dark brown sugar. You can detect a hint of saltiness in every bite which sets off the dark chocolate so amazingly well. If you haven’t experienced a hint of sea salt in your cookies yet, you’re about to have your mind blown. These are absolute keepers.
This book only offers quantities in cups so for my metric system users I weighed all the ingredients out on my scale for you and have included the exact weights below. You are most welcome :)
As a side note, I’d like to make a little argument for weighing ingredients using a scale. I feel comfortable using both systems, but I prefer to weigh for baking because there’s much less risk of human error (also the weight of flour, for example, can vary considerably depending on the quality of the flour, how much you pack into the cup, and the humidity of the air). I bought mine for about $20 (here’s a similar one) and it’s revolutionized my baking.
Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
Ingredients
- 454g/ 16oz/ 3 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ tsp kosher salt
- 226g/ 80z/ 2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
- 145g/ 5oz/ 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 226g/ 8oz/ 1 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 226g/ 8oz bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped into ¼- and ½- inch chunks
Directions
- Place an oven rack in the centre of the oven. Preheat oven to 180C/ 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Sift whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium sized bowl. Pour any grainy bits that remain in the sifter into your bowl as well.
- In a large bowl, add the butter, dark brown sugar, and white sugar, and beat until butter and sugars are just blended. If you don’t have a stand mixer get ready for an epic arm workout.
- Mix in the eggs, one at a time, making sure the first is combined before adding the second. Mix in the vanilla.
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the large bowl and use a rubber spatula to combine. You’ll notice that the mixture is fairly dry and thick for cookie dough. Don’t panic – all is going according to plan! Add the chocolate chunks to the batter and mix until combined evenly.
- Scrape the batter out onto the work surface and use your hands to finish incorporating the all the ingredients.
- Scoops mounds of batter (about 3 tbsp each) onto your baking sheet, leaving a good 3 inches in between them (about 6 to a sheet). Bake for 16-20 minutes, until evenly dark brown. Transfer the cookies still on the parchment to a rack to cool. Continue with the rest of the batter. Eat cookies warm from the oven or later that same day. Makes about 20 cookies, the size of your palm.
