Bratwurst, knockwust, bockwurst... Use a mixute or whatever you want.

Knackwurst is commonly “knockwurst” for some reason here in America, but a simple spelling change doesn’t make it any less tasty. I’ll just keep using the knockwurst because that’s what I see more of in stores here. Anyway, knockwurst is similar to bratwurst but is (usually) a mixture of veal and pork with some garlic and light seasonings mixed in. I say “usually” because different recipes call for different amounts of veal/pork or even sometimes other meats and spices–it depends on how creative the butcher wants to get with their own take on it.

The thing is, no matter what type of sausage you end up getting, you will have a terrific meal to go with some good winter beers. I love some stouts and porters as the weather gets colder. But hey, you don’t even need beer to enjoy this! I’ve been taking leftover to lunch at work (where beer is frowned upon during the work hours… bummer) and it reheats nicely and make everyone envious.

Sausages, mushrooms, and onions all cooked together. What's not to like?

So yeah, get your grub on and make this. It’s not terribly complicated and you’ll dig it. Click through the break to see the recipe and more pictures.

Ingredients
24 ounces fresh knockwurst or other -wurst (about 6 sausages)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (or 1 tbsp butter + 1 tbsp canola oil)
12 ounces egg noodles
2 onions, roughly chopped, bite sized pieces
16 ounces cremini mushrooms, stemmed and quartered (any mushrooms will do, but cremini are tasty and not usually much more expensive than white mushrooms)
1 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1.5 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 cup heavy cream

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Cook egg noodles for half the time indicated on the package in a large pot of salted water. They will cook more later. Drain, return to (now empty) pot and set aside.
3. Heat a large frying pan (or cast iron skillet) over medium heat. Add the butter (or butter+oil) and when melted, add the sausages. Brown the sausages on all sides, this should take about 10 minutes. Adjust the heat as needed. Remove the sausages to a plate.
4. Add the onion, season with salt and pepper and cook on medium to med-high for about 5 minutes, until it starts to soften. You shouldn’t need to add any more oil during this step as there should still be enough in the pan.
5. Add the mushrooms, increase heat to medium-high if you haven’t already, and cook for 5-10 minutes, until mushroom start to brown and bits of onion are translucent or browning. (Tip, if you don’t stir too often, you can get some good browned bits on the bottom of the pan.)
6. Add the wine, cook for a few minutes until the alcohol smell dissipates. Then sprinkle on the flour and stir well until it dissolves. Add the chicken broth and mustard. Bring the mixture to a simmer if it isn’t already. Let simmer for a minute to help thicken. (*protip* Dissolve the flour in a 2 tablespoons of some heated chicken brother first to prevent clumping.)
7. Pour the onion-mushroom mixture over the noodles in the pot. Stir a couple times then remove the pot from the heat. Pour in the cream and mix well. Taste, add pepper and salt if needed.
8. Transfer everything to a 13×9 dish and tuck the browned sausage into the top of the noodles. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue cooking for 10 more minutes, or until the top starts to brown a bit (you know, to look fancier).

Great Fall/Winter food.

I hope you picked up some puff pasty while you were out, because that’s basically the only other thing we need. Have I mentioned that this was simple? It is.

I’ve made this will all kinda of fruits: blueberries, raspberries, plums, peaches, nectarines, and strawberries–no, not all at ones. Try to keep to to under 4 kinds of fruit. The less “juicy” ones tend to work a bit better because the crust doesn’t get as soggy. So if you want it have blueberries in there, I’d go light on them.

That's my piece in the background!

Who wouldn’t want a slice of this? I mean, really? It’s got some great fruit on there and that awesome flaky, buttery crust. All done with only a minimal amount of effort too. The crust is already made. Cut up some fruits, you don’t even need to peel them. And it goes right on a sheet pan with some foil or parchment paper. If you do it right, you don’t even have much to clean.

It looks good because it tastes good.

So thaw out that puff pastry and click through to get the details…

Easy summer tart
ingredients
1 sheet puff pastry
2-4 cups sliced fruit or berries (This time I had plums, peaches, and nectarines)
sugar

Directions
1. Roll out the puff pasty. Don’t be afraid to fold it over and generally manhandle it if you have to. Yes, I know, usually you want to avoid working puff pastry too much because it won’t puff as well (or it’ll get chewy), but that’s OK here. We don’t want this to puff up everywhere, we just wanted an easy way to get pie crust. So yeah, roll it out to at least a 12 inch circle. Or whatever shape you end up with (mine was most definitely not a circle).
2. Toss fruit into the center and spread it in mostly an even layer. Don’t mound it up and be sure to leave at least 2-4 inches of dough free on the sides.
3. Fold that loose dough over onto the edges of the fruit.
4. Brush the dough with water and sprinkle with sugar. (If you really want it to look nice, brush with a beaten egg then sprinkle on some sugar… but I was keeping things easy on purpose.)
5. Bake for one hour at 450F on a parchment lined sheet pan. If the crust starts turning too brown, toss a sheet of foil over the thing. If it doesn’t appear done or the fruit is too firm after one hour, continue baking for up to 30 minutes more.

Let me break this down for you though, it’s actually a pretty small step to go from salad to sandwich. Go back and look at the salad, I’ll wait… OK, we already have the spinach–lettuce in sandwiches is obvious–and putting salad dressing in a sandwich is also not uncommon either. Blueberries, I’ll grant you, aren’t obvious, but they were great in the salad. That leaves us with what missing?– Cheese and bread? Cheese easily goes in both, in fact, I debated crumbling either some blue cheese or goat cheese on that salad, but decided to keep things simple. As for bread–what do you think croutons are? So, all I have to do is make my croutons from whole slices of bread instead of small squares and warm the salad up between the bread and cheese.

But as I said, the situation kept spiraling out of control: I ended up making several delicious variants. Here are my three favorite.

Blueberry balsamic viniagrette (large), Spinich and tomato (top left), Sun-dried tomato and caramelized onions (bottom right). All made with goat gouda.

I’ve listed them below in order of preference, but I’ll eat any of them without complaint. I made a couple without the balsamic vinegar and blueberries, but that one was hands-down the best. (Not just my opinion either! Honest!)

For full recipes, scroll down and click through for the full article.

1) Spinach and blueberry grilled cheese with a balsamic glaze

Best. Grilled cheese. Ever.

With that salad on my mind, this was the first one I made. The dark, slightly-black looking surface on the bread is actually balsamic glaze, bot burnt toast. Note that all these sandwiches were made with goat gouda and a rustic, wheat, sour-dough bread. Any wheat or sourdough would fine. I might try a goat brie next time though, it may melt a bit better (and the blueberries will stick better when assembling it).

2) Hint-of-heat tomato and caramelized onion grilled cheese

This is probably the most basic of the bunch.

Remember that sun-dried tomato spread? I froze some and couldn’t help but use it here. It’s like a gift that keeps giving. This sandwich has a healthy amount of caramelized onions in it, and I’m OK with that. Once they are cooked down, all that’s left is this mild earthy sweetness that pairs really well with the tomato and cheese. That hint of heat? A pinch of red pepper flakes. Seriously, it really brought everything home.

3) Spinach, tomato, spinach, caramelized onions, and spinach grilled cheese.

This one goes out to all the spinach lovers out there...

Lots of spinach (lots), a few slices of roma tomato, goat gouda, and some caramelized onions. Great stuff, but for once I may have overdone it with the spinach. The sandwich had nearly two cups of wilted spinach in it. It was great though, the tomato and the goat gouda helped cut through it. This one could have slid into the number two spot if either the cheese was increased or the spinach was decreased.

So now that you know, let’s break down how to do each one:

1) Spinach and blueberry grilled cheese with a balsamic glaze

Stop whatever you are doing and make this.

Spinach and blueberry grilled cheese with a balsamic glaze
The proportions vary depending on the size of you slice, so I’ve deliberately left some of the proportions a bit vague. This should make enough for two sandwiches.

Ingredients
blueberries (get the most flavorful you can find, I find the organic ones to be superior)
3/4 to 1 cup Balsamic vinegar
1 1/2 to 2 cups fresh baby spinach
goat gouda (or goat brie)
2 tbsps butter (melted)
4 slices rustic bread
splash of vegetable or canola oil

Directions
1. In a small, non-reactive pot or skillet over medium to medium high heat add the balsamic vinegar. Bring to a bares simmer, adjusting the heat if needed, until it reduces by about half and has thickened. Don’t over-reduce as it will continue to thicken as it cools.
2. Brush one side of all four slices of the bread with the melted butter–this will be the outside. Spread the other side, the inside, with the balsamic glaze. Some may seep through the holes in the bread, this is OK.
3. Put a layer of the spinach on the bottom slice, then layer the cheese. Carefully place the blueberries on the cheese and close the sandwich to keep them in place. I had maybe a dozen blueberries or so in each sandwich. A couple fell out while cooking that I tried to sneak back in. Protip: If you use goat brie, you’ll have a better time getting the blueberries to stick to the cheese–they kinda roll off the sliced gouda.
4. Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add just a drop of oil and spread it around the skillet with a paper towel. (You don’t want to cook in the oil, you’ve already buttered the bread. The oil is to give extra insurance against sticking if cheese oozes out.)
5. When the skillet is warm, place the sandwiches into the skillet and allow to cook until the bottom is toasted and golden. Cover as best as you can to help the gouda melt. Once the base is golden, carefully flip the sandwiches over (picking up any blueberries that escape) and cook until the next side is golden (covered, again).
Extra. If you have any glaze left over, spread some over the top. That stuff is delicious. Serve with some blueberries on the side.

2) Hint-of-heat tomato and caramelized onion grilled cheese

Excellent sandwich. The onions and tiny bit of red pepper flakes make it.

Hint-of-heat (sun-dried) tomato and caramelized onion grilled cheese
The proportions vary depending on the size of you slice, so I’ve deliberately left some of the proportions a bit vague. This should make enough for two sandwiches.

Ingredients
2 tbsps butter (melted)
4 pinches red pepper flakes
Sun-dried tomato spread (see recipe)
caramelized onions (about 3 onions worth, see recipe here)
4 slices rustic bread
splash of vegetable or canola oil

Directions
1. Brush one side of all four slices of the bread with the melted butter–this will be the outside. Spread the other side, the inside, with the tomato spread. Sprinkle a pinch or two of red pepper flakes over the side with the tomato spread. Add a healthy amount of caramelized onion. Those are the only additions other than cheese, so don’t skimp. Then add some sliced goat gouda and close the sandwich.
2. Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add just a drop of oil and spread it around the skillet with a paper towel. (You don’t want to cook in the oil, you’ve already buttered the bread. The oil is to give extra insurance against sticking if cheese oozes out.)
3. When the skillet is warm, place the sandwiches into the skillet and allow to cook until the bottom is toasted and golden. Cover as best as you can to help the gouda melt. Once the base is golden, carefully flip the sandwiches over and cook until the next side is golden (covered, again).

3) Double spinach and fresh tomato goat gouda grilled cheese

I love the wilted spinach in this.

Double spinach and fresh tomato goat gouda grilled cheese
The proportions vary depending on the size of you slice, so I’ve deliberately left some of the proportions a bit vague. This should make enough for two sandwiches.

Ingredients
about 4 cups spinach
2 tbsps butter (melted)
2 pinches red pepper flakes
1 roma tomato, sliced thin
caramelized onions
4 slices rustic bread
splash of vegetable or canola oil
2 tbsps olive oil

Directions
1. In a large pot over medium to medium high heat add a the olive oil, then add the spinach. Stir frequently until all the spinach is wilted and has reduced in volume.
2. Brush both sides of all four slices of the bread with the melted butter. Sprinkle a pinch of red pepper flakes over one side of each piece of bread. Add a small amount of caramelized onion to two of the slices of bread (think of these two slices as the “bottom” of each sandwich). Add some sliced goat gouda, then pile half the spinach onto each sandwich. Add two or three slices of the roma tomato and add more slices of the gouda. Close the sandwich with the remaining slice of bread.
3. Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add just a drop of oil and spread it around the skillet with a paper towel. (You don’t want to cook in the oil, you’ve already buttered the bread. The oil is to give extra insurance against sticking if cheese oozes out.)
4. When the skillet is warm, place the sandwiches into the skillet and allow to cook until the bottom is toasted and golden. Cover as best as you can to help the gouda melt. Once the base is golden, carefully flip the sandwiches over and cook until the next side is golden (covered, again).

So very good. That cheese just slightly oozing out is pretty rad.

Do you vary your choice of cheese when making a grilled cheese? I used to insist that all of mine be made with gruyere or ementeller. Maybe I felt that it was typically French and that it was simply good enough that I didn’t need to explore. (And, frankly, it is quite good. Try a grilled cheese with a touch of good dijon mustard and some gruyere.)

Recently though, I’ve decided to expand my acceptable ingredient list for grilled cheeses. I’ve always been a fan of good cheese (I am half french, after all), but those cheese have been for eating cut off of the wedge, not melted between bread. Boy, was I wrong not to start varying my cheeses earlier.

I could have probably eaten both sandwiches without an issue. Unfortunately, I had to give one to my roommate. He enjoyed it though.

In this sandwich, I reached for Manchego, a Spanish sheep’s milk cheese with slightly sharp earthy tones. My sun-dried tomato spread was already built off a pesto base, so I could count on some basil and nutty flavors to be present. I added a few large leaves of basil to the sandwich and a sprinkle of rosemary to increase the herbal nature of the sandwich. Everything came together perfectly. The sourdough provided a great base for the sandwich offsetting the herbs and the cheese just enough. The manchego blended excellent with the other flavors and even the tomatoes weren’t dominating the rest of the ingredients.

I love it when some of the cheese melts out of the side of the bread and starts cooking onto the skillet. It gets that great crust on it and develops so much more flavor.

All my grilled cheese directions are very similar and pretty easy.
Grilled Cheese: Manchego with sun-dried tomato spread
Makes two sandwiches.
Ingredients
4 slices sourdough bread
about 8 ounces Manchego, cut into slices or shredded
sun-dried tomato spread
butter
fresh basil
dried rosemary
oil (vegetable or canola)

Directions
1. Butter one side of each slice of bread. If your butter isn’t soft, melt it in the microwave and use a brush to apply it.
2. Spread a non-trivial about of the sun-dried tomato spread over the other side of each slice. You will have a butter side and tomato side.
3. Place the cheese onto the tomato side and top with several leaves of basil. Sprinkle bit of rosemary onto the other slice of bread (onto the tomato spread, so it sticks). Place the two slices of bread together (butter sides out, tomato sides in) to make the sandwich.
4. Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add just a drop of oil and spread it around the skillet with a paper towel. (You don’t want to cook in the oil, you’ve already buttered the bread. The oil is to give extra insurance against sticking if cheese oozes out.)
5. When warm, place the sandwiches into the skillet and allow to cook until the bottom is toasted and golden. The cheese will likely not be melted. Carefully flip the sandwiches over and cook until the next side is golden and brown.
* Extra: If you want fully melted, runny cheese that oozes out and cooks onto the pan a bit (I’m all for that!), cover the skillet after you flip it.

I need to make more kinds of grilled cheeses. There are so many kinds of cheeses that are just begging to be made into grilled cheese now!

Winter BLT

Really, this sandwich was an excuse to use up some bagels and that terrific sun-dried tomato spread. My original humble idea was to make a simple BLT. The issue with that though is that in the dead of winter, fresh tomatoes just aren’t available. (Sure, tomatoes are available year-round, but the best BLT are ones made with honest-to-goodness, outdoor-grown, vine-ripened, hyphen-laden-adjective, heirloom-style tomatoes.) I had just made that sun-dried tomato spread, so I figured I could use that as a substitute. And if I was going to make one substitute, why not make several. Bagels, obviously, were on hand. Avocados are always tasty (doubly so in a BLT). And bean sprouts? Why not, they are healthy–it’ll offset the bacon!

Get your chompers around this!

I’ll spare you the assembly directions, I trust you to be clever enough to assemble the ingredients listed above between two slices of toasted bagels. Don’t let me down, now. I believe in you. Go and enjoy a BLT in the winter. Now you have no excuse for not having access to fresh tomatoes.

I believe this is what is called "the money shot"

Nothing fancy, but kids would eat it up.

When I make carrots, I usually just steam them or boil them in a tiny bit of liquid (essentially, steaming them). I don’t think I could devote a whole post to that. You’d be pretty bored (hell, I’d be bored writing it, but I like eating it though). So I decided to mix this up a bit. I have seen glazed carrots served at a few restaurants and figured I’d make my own version of the buttery, sweet carrots. These are very easy to make, but do require a bit of attention at the end to make sure the glaze doesn’t burn. Don’t worry, all you have to do is stir it a bit–heaven forbid you put too much effort into a meal :)

Look at 'em, all shiny with that caramelized sugar. Yeah. I dig that.

Glazed Carrots
Ingredients
1 bag baby carrots (or 1 lb of regular carrots, cut into 1/3 inch rounds)
1 tsp kosher salt
3 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tbsp butter (unsalted)

Directions
1. In a large pot over medium-high heat, add the carrots, salt, half the sugar, and the water. Cook, lid on or partially off, for about 4 minutes, until the carrots are almost tender.
2. Remove the lid and increase the heat to medium high, stirring occasionally. When the liquid reduces to less than 2 tablespoons (just go by your gut) add the butter and the rest of the sugar. Stir frequently to coat all the carrots and cook until the carrots are have a glaze over them. I like to continue until a few browned bits appear, but be careful not to burn the sugars. It should take about 3 minutes.
3. Remove the carrots to a serving plate, keeping as much of the glaze as you can. You may have to pour/scrape the pan. It’s good stuff.

Super tasty, super easy.

If I had the dough pre-made, that would solve many of my problems, but most of the time when I want pizza at home, I don’t have dough already in the fridge or rising on the counter. What I do often have is flat bread (or pita bread). And, you know what, that’s just fine. Pizza doesn’t have to involve lots of prep work or start from flour, yeast, and water. Despite my insistence on making my own doughs and pizza crusts, I’m now a big fan of using flat breads for my pizza crust.

I also found another great short-cut for toppings. Remember that roasted vegetable tart from last week? I didn’t end up using all the vegetables on the tart; I still had an unopened jar. So I used those left-overs on my pizza. Add a few more things you may have in your fridge or pantry–some left over chicken, some chopped onion, even some Canadian bacon (or real bacon!)–and top with shredded mozzarella cheese. Easiest pizza ever. (I even started running out of mozzarella and finished one of the pizza’s with cheddar! It was pretty good.)

Dinner is made in less than 30 minutes.

And the sauce? I still stand by my standard pizza sauce. It’s just too easy and tasty not to use. All you have to do is add a few spices to a canned crushed tomatoes and let it simmer for a while.

Flat-bread pizza
Use pita rounds or flat bread as a base. Improvise with any toppings you prefer.
See the Pizza Sauce here: Easy Pizza Sauce

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Spread your pizza sauce in a thin layer over the flat bread. Add the topping (all must be precooked) and shredded mozzarella.
3. Bake on a baking sheet (or baking stone) for 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted, the ingredients are warmed through, and the bread is slightly crispy.

I loved those grilled vegetables. The grilled eggplant was probably my favorite.

Slow cooked, not labor intensive, and makes the house smell great... Well, it makes your house smell like great chili, and I think that's just fine.

It’s a bit different than my last one–all-meat, no-bean–and not at all like the turkey chili. This is more of an everything chili that combines a little but of anything I had available to make a tasty stew. Beans, ground beef, onions, garlic… heck, if I had bacon on hand, I’m sure that would have gone into it. I don’t want to get into the whole beans or no-beans debate. I think you should just be open to trying a few different kinds and making something you like. I don’t even have a stake in this argument–I’ll eat anything as long as it’s tasty. And, like most chilis, this one is.

I actually like to eat my chili off of tortilla chips. I almost insist on having chips. I don’t even know why I started doing it, maybe that crunchy texture has something to do with it, or maybe it’s as simple as the extra bit of salt. The reduced tomatoes or overall thickness of the chili might be what gave me the impression that dipping things into it was a good idea. I’m not the only that does this, right? I don’t think that’s unusual. Does anyone else do it?

I froze about half of the chili in small containers so I could quickly thaw them on cold days. On those cold nights where you want something that feels like it takes hours to prepare but are too tired/lazy/cold/motivated to actually make food, this comes in handy.

I didn’t look very far for this recipe. I know Cook’s Illustrated has a few good recipes, so just slightly modified their bean and beef chili. There are a few changes I did make: I had some chipotle peppers in adobo in the freezer from my quinoa recipe, so I threw some of those in there. It adds a spiciness and a smoky flavor to it. I also often like to use some beer as a cooking liquid in the chili. I like stouts for the rich, roasted flavor they can contribute. Pale ales are good too and provide a milder flavor. Either way, you can often use what you have on hand, and you have an excuse to have one yourself too :) .

Beef and Bean Chili
Makes 8 to 10 servings. My recipe has some differences from Cooks Illustrated (like the chipotle in adobo), but the roots are the same.
2 tbsp veg oil
2 onions, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
8 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup chili powder
1 tbsp ground cumin
2 tsps ground coriander
2 chipotle peppers from a can of chipotle in adobo sauce
1 tbsp adobo sauce from the can (can reduce if you want less heat)
2 lbs lean ground beef
2 (15-ounce) cans red kidney beans, drained, rinsed
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes
1 (28-ounce) can tomato puree
1 bottle of beer (I like stouts or even pale ales for this, almost anything will be fine.)
salt
tortilla chips
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (optional–add only if you want more heat. You can cook everything through and taste near the end. If you want more heat, add cayenne, simmer and stir well for a few minutes and taste again. Be warned that it seems to get hotter as it rests.)

Directions
1. In a large pot (or Dutch oven), heat oil until over medium until hot, 2-3 minutes. Add onions, bell pepper, garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander. Stir and cook for about 10 minutes.
2. Increase heat to medium-high then add the beef. Using a wooden spoon, break up the beef and cook until it looses it’s pink color and just starts browning (3-4 mins).
3. Add beans, tomatoes (and the juice), tomato puree, chipotle pepper, adobo sauce, half the beer (drink the rest), 1/4 tsp pepper, and 1/2 tsp salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low. Cover and simmer, stirring every now and then. Cook for 1 hour.
4. Remove cover, cook for an hour more. If chili gets too dry and sticks to the bottom, add 1/2 cup of water as needed (or, my favorite, more beer!)
5. Taste half an hour into step 4. Adjust salt and pepper if needed. Add cayenne if you feel it needs more heat. Continue cooking until chili darkens and thickens to desired consistency.

Bonus addition
If you like more of a thick sauce with your chili, add 2 tablespoons cornstarch to 2 tablespoons of cold water and mix until there are no lumps. Add to the hot chili and stir well, simmer for 5 minutes more.

The garlic-rosemary ones are in the front, the sweet ones are in the back. They are both great.

Putting chickpeas in the oven is not new here at The Food Spot. I’ve made a toasted chickpea salad before, which–if I may be modest for a second–was terrific. (Wait a sec… that’s the opposite of modesty, oh well.) In that version the chickpeas were only lightly toasted–the centers of the chickpeas were still chewy–so it turned out more like little self contained balls of slightly crunchy, roasted-flavored hummus. This time I just kept cooking them. I cooked them for nearly twice as long–almost an hour. What this yielded was a super crunchy snack–almost closer to a nut than to a bean. I took that as a not so subtle hint and mixed in a few pistachios and cashews.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot the whole “two ways” thing that this post is supposed to be about. Well, when you look at nuts, you normally see them as either sweet (e.g., honey roasted) or salty. So I basically adapted that concept for these: one batch was made with brown sugar and chili powder and the other with garlic and rosemary. I don’t know what possessed me to add chili powder to the brown sugar one, I just figured that sweet and spicy would also be tasty. Fortunately, I was right.

See the brown sugar caramelized on some of the nuts? That's a little but of awesome.

You can mix your own versions of spices, but if you are short on ideas, feel free to use mine. Either way you won’t be disappointed. It’s a ridiculously simple snack to make. I served them with an aperitif before dinner and munched on the few leftover the next day.
Here’s how to do it:

Spicy Brown Sugar Chickpeas
Ingredients
1 can of chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), drained, rinsed, dried
1/4 cup unroasted, unsalted cashews
1/4 cup unroasted, unsalted pistachios
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 packed tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chili powder

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Drain and rinse the chickpeas in a colandar. Allow to dry.
2. Toss chickpeas with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread out on a rimmed baking sheet.
3. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until they look browned and rattle when you give the pan a shake. Move them around on the sheet every 15 to 20 minutes to prevent any burnt areas.
4. Toss the remaining ingredients with the warm chickpeas and bake for 10 more minutes.

I don't know if another photo will convince you to make these or not, but hey, they look good, so why not?

Savory Chickpeas
Ingredients
1 can of chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), drained, rinsed, dried
1/4 cup unroasted, unsalted cashews
1/4 cup unroasted, unsalted pistachios
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp rosemary

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400F. Drain and rinse the chickpeas in a colandar. Allow to dry.
2. Toss chickpeas with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread out on a rimmed baking sheet.
3. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until they look browned and rattle when you give the pan a shake. Move them around on the sheet every 15 to 20 minutes to prevent any burnt areas.
4. Toss the remaining ingredients with the warm chickpeas and bake for 10 more minutes.

Bonus
These are built in make-ahead foods. Not only can you prepare each recipe until step 3 then finish later to serve still warm, but you can also simply make everything and store them in an air-tight container and serve at room temp. They are good either way.

Anyway, the point is that a gem like this is often overlooked because commonplace cereals and grains, like rice and pasta, steal the spotlight. That’s a shame, because whole grains can be loaded with quite a bit of flavor and nutritional goodness. Quinoa, not even technically a grain (a pseudo-cereal seed), seems to slip by unnoticed. Often times, to get people to be aware of them, a bet from Colonel Hugh Pickering has to be made to teach the poor thing how to believably mingle in upper-class society with a series of voice coaching lessons–What’s wrong with me? That’s My Fair Lady.

If it has no leaves, can it still be a salad? That's too much for me to handle.

I’m just trying to say that quinoa is really great and not nearly well known enough. It’s also pretty ridiculously healthy. Not only is it fairly protein rich, but it’s one of the very few vegetarian complete proteins out there. It’s also chock full of other nutrients like manganese, magnesium, iron, copper, and phosphorus.

If all that hasn’t convinced you to try this grain, maybe recipe will; It’s easy to make and hard to mess up. Really. It’s dead simple. The only cooking required is to simmer the quinoa in some water for 15 minutes or so. It practically comes with a marker that tells you when it’s ready. Take a look at it after the times up… notice those little rings that form around the outside of it? It’s done.

OK. So if it this great, there must be some kind of downside to this dish, right? Nope. You do have to chop a few vegetables: dice an onion or shallot, cut up some green onions, and dice a bell pepper. You’ll be done with that before the quinoa even finishes cooking.

The one thing in this dish that I would insist you don’t leave out is the chipotle pepper. It’s a small addition, but adds a deceptively large amount of flavor.

Quinoa salad or anti-salad? Maybe I should stop calling it a salad. I'll just call it tasty.

Ingredients
Makes 6-8 servings. It’s surprisingly filling.
1 cup dry quinoa
2 cups water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
juice of half lemon (1 to 1.5 tbsp)
1 chipotle in adobo, minced (with the sauce) (about 1.5 tbsp)
2 cans (15oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
2 small red or yellow peppers (or one very large), diced
1/2 red onion (or one large shallot), diced
8 scallions, white and light-to-medium green parts cut into small rounds
ground black pepper

Directions
1. Prepare the quinoa. (Check your package for directions, some quinoa needs to be rinsed. Mine was pre-rinsed and ready to cook.) Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Add the salt and the quinoa. Return to a boil. Cover and reduce the heat to low (just to a simmer). Cook for 15 minutes. If after 15 minutes there is still liquid in the bottom of the pan, remove the lid to encourage evaporation.
2. While the quinoa is cooking, combine the lemon juice, vinegar, soy sauce, and chipotle (for extra heat add 1 tsp or more of the minced chipotle/adobo sauce). Drizzle in the oil while whisking to create an emulsion.
3. In a large bowl, combine the quinoa, black beans, scallions, red onion, and bell pepper. Pour the dressing over this and mix to combine. Season with salt and ground black pepper to your liking.