For centuries rice has been a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in Asia. I don't know about you but I love smelling steaming white rice, especially when I scope spoonfuls of braised meat sauce and drizzle all over it to eat with all the other dishes. Rice tastes great when we cooked it in other ways too we can make them into fried rice, baked rice, risotto, casserole mmm~~ all my favourite kind of food!
However, in the recent years there is an increase of people substituting white rice with either brown rice, couscous, barley and the more popular one is Quinoa.
Quinoa (pronounced Keen-Wah) is a tiny grain (actually it is a seed of a leafy plant called Chenopodium quinoa) that is considered as complete food because it is high with protein, full of vitamins, is antioxidant, totally gluten plus it is wheat and cholesterol free. That's not all, quinoa have other health benefits too, from aiding weight loss to lowers blood pressure, on top of tha because it has low GI or Glycaemic Index it is a beneficial food to diabetics patients as it helps to lower blood sugar.
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| Credit |
Now, it is difficult for us to change our taste let alone a staple food in our diet, with loadful of health benefits or not. However, I guarantee that you will love it after the first mouthful. So, let's talk a little bit more about quinoa.
How does a quinoa look like?
Quinoa is a grain that is tiny and round with a find band around it and ending it with something that looks like a tail, As it cooks this "tail" sort of spirals out and almost detaches itself and when it is cooked it retains a little bit of crunch thus giving it a unique texture. When the grain is cooked it expanded to almost four times of its original volume!
Colors of the quinoa?
Quinoa basically comes in three colors; white which is the more widely available and quickest to cook, red takes a longer time to cook and black that takes the longest and keeps most of its crunchy texture.
How does quinoa taste like?
Cooked quinoa has a very distinctive nutty taste and appearance which makes them stands out from other grains.
How to prepare quinoa for cooking?
Due to the arid climate that it is grown in, quinoa seeds developed a coating of naturally-forming chemicals known as saponins to protect itself from the harsh elements. This coating leaves a bitter residue that is not easy on the palate. Even though store bought quinoa are pre-washed with the saponins are already removed, it is still a good idea to rinse it thoroughly before cooking by placing the seeds in a strainer, and running cold water over the seeds while gently rubbing them together with your hands to remove any residue of saponins.
How to cook quinoa?
As shown in the infographic above it's 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water. You can cook the quinoa using the rice cooker, this is the less fussy way. However if you are like me, who likes to watch my food being cooked, you can cook them over the stove too.
Start by adding water to the quinoa in a pot and bring it to boil over high heat, turn down the fire to let it simmer till all water has been absorbed, this will take probably about 10-12 minutes. When it is cooked you will notice that the quinoa becomes sort of translucent, and the detached white germs appear to be white-spiraled strands. After it is cooked, cover the pot to let the quinoa rest for 5 -10 minutes before fluffing it, this will ensure it is softer and fluffier.
Quinoa works brilliantly with spices such as cumin, coriander and paprika, for easy flavouring add a pinch while the quinoa is cooking.
Enough of the technical talk, let's chat about the real thing.
With the current fast paced life, everyone's looking for some quick meals to satisfy their hunger so that they can spend their time doing other more important things. Thus you see a lot of food brands pushes out meal packs (aka processed food lah) that takes as little as a few minutes in the microwave oven for the food to be ready for consumption. Does not matter if it does not taste fresh, it will be a bonus if it is tasty, less salty/sweet/spicy etc
BUT WHY DO YOU COMPROMISE YOUR MEALS??? Isn't eating or having a proper meal an IMPORTANT thing in your life too? With so many health issues occurring now, shouldn't we be more conscious in the food that we are putting into our body?
Lucky for us, there are still many food companies that care about consumer's health and takes pride in ensuring the food they manufactured or sell are of top quality and does not have any harmful ingredients or chemicals in it. One such company is SuperLife Co, a home grown company (#MadeinSingapore woohoo!), here's the proof that they care coz this is written in their website;
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Enough of the technical talk, let's chat about the real thing.
With the current fast paced life, everyone's looking for some quick meals to satisfy their hunger so that they can spend their time doing other more important things. Thus you see a lot of food brands pushes out meal packs (aka processed food lah) that takes as little as a few minutes in the microwave oven for the food to be ready for consumption. Does not matter if it does not taste fresh, it will be a bonus if it is tasty, less salty/sweet/spicy etc
BUT WHY DO YOU COMPROMISE YOUR MEALS??? Isn't eating or having a proper meal an IMPORTANT thing in your life too? With so many health issues occurring now, shouldn't we be more conscious in the food that we are putting into our body?
Lucky for us, there are still many food companies that care about consumer's health and takes pride in ensuring the food they manufactured or sell are of top quality and does not have any harmful ingredients or chemicals in it. One such company is SuperLife Co, a home grown company (#MadeinSingapore woohoo!), here's the proof that they care coz this is written in their website;
We wanted to take charge of our life so that we can look good and feel good sustainably through a healthy and natural mean. ~ SuperLife Co
SuperLife Co takes pride in their quinoa and are serious when searching for top graded ones, after many failed tries of the quality of the quinoa they finally found a reliable source in Peru. Over at those farms in Peru the Chenopodium quinoa are grown organically with certified natural top soil that has been untouched by processing, pesticides and chemicals. Superlife Co only carries quinoa that are at least 99.99% pure (indicating no toxic level) and hence their quinoa requires no rinsing.
SuperLife Co Quinoa is:
– Natural
– Organic
– Premium Grade
– Gluten-free
– Dairy-free
– Non-GMO
– Whole Grain
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| Screen grabbed from SuperLife website |
SuperLife Co has 3 products; Asian Quinoa Packs, Plain Quinoa Sacks and 4pm Quinoa Cacao Bloc. I will be reviewing their single serving Asian Quinoa Pack that they have generously sent to us. The retail price for this is SGD8.90 per pack if you order 9 packs or less and its SGD4.90 for 10 packs or more.
The individual pack does not look very interesting nor appealing, definitely does not look like the photo on the package. Well, those are for visual purpose and also as an inspirations for you to prepare the quinoa.
Included in the packet besides the quinoa is a small tiny pinch size packet of pink salt for flavoring and a packet of ingredient. What is amazing and I love about this is they are packed with real ingredients, you can see from the follow photo of the Mushroom Quinoa pack I am cooking in the pot, those slices of mushrooms came together with the pack. Cool right!
Cooking of SuperLife Co Asian Quinoa Packs are very easy. I just followed the instruction at the back of the package by adding 200ml of water to the quinoa, stir to mix them and start to cook. It takes about 15-20mins over the stove on low fire (It was the 1st time I am cooking and I was afraid I will burnt it thus I used low fire).
I don't know about you but I think the quinoa with the pre-packed mushrooms looks appealing too! However, as much as I wish to chomp that down I know it will not be enough, I need some meat! So I made a quick pan seared Cajun salmon filet to complete my dinner. It was such a flavorful mushroom quinoa, I seriously think that I can just eat this alone.
These Asian Quinoa Packs are in such a handy dandy size that I just pop 1 into my bag to bring to my office to cook as lunch. Yes, if you still does not know I have been cooking lunch in office for 2 years plus using my Electric Lunch Box (ELB). Cooking quinoa with ELB is same too, 200ml with 1 pack and about 15mins later it is ready. That afternoon I added smoked salmon to it, and viola~ I have a healthy balanced lunch! I saved $6 of not-s-healthy lunch in Orchard area.
After reading the greatness of quinoa and how beneficial this super food is, are you ready to start your journey to a better health eating better food? I strongly suggest that you include quinoa in your diet if you wish to go for some clean eating occasionally, like when you overeat during festive season or you had too much sinful food for a few days in a row you need to let your body "take a break".
Still hesitate to start the clean eating journey for fear that you may not like quinoa? Fear not, if you tried a pack of the Quinoa packs and find that you don't like it, you can return the rest of the unopened packs back to them because SuperLife Co has Money Back Guarantee. Good right?
GREAT DEALS FOR MY READERS!
If you decided to start the journey, here's something from us to celebrate with you! Love us or not? Use "superjenn17" 10% discount code for SuperLife Co products; excludes 5kg Quinoa and all promotional items such as Quinoa Starter Kit.
Disclaimer : We received SuperLife Co Asian Quinoa Pack for the purpose of this post, no other compensation were received. All opinions in this post are 100% and based on our cooking and food tasting of the quinoa packs. All photos unless otherwise credited belongs to The DinoFamily, you may not use them without seeking our permission.
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