Winter Red Quinoa with Wild Berry Tea

Chewy and warm with fragrant notes of sweet and sour dried wild berries, this breakfast is nourishing and highly satisfying on a cold winter day.

When you need strength and warmth, the best thing for breakfast is a hearty warm grain. The Scots have their oat groats, which have been known to warm the soul on a foggy cold morning and we all know how good they are for us. (That is, of course, if you don't have an oat allergy.)

And then there's quinoa! Ancient people gathered quinoa in the high altitude plains of Peru's Andes, Bolivia and Equador and thrived in those harsh living conditions. And no wonder - quinoa is a complete protein that rivals other grains in nutrition.

What you will need:
a pot and stove
1 cup of organic red quinoa
2 cups water
1 tablespoon or 2 teabags of wild berry tea or hibiscus tea.*
1 teaspoon of dried mint

Soak quinoa overnight and rinse in the morning. Place in a pot with water, mint and tea on the stove on medium-high heat until boiling. It will look like this:



Reduce heat to low and cover. Set timer for 15 minutes and do whatever else you like. Come back in 15 minutes and take off heat -- drain water and serve.

You can also enjoy it with milk or milk substitute.

* If you are lucky enough to find a cheap wild berry tea in an international / specialty market, all the better. I usually buy a Polish wild berry tea in a Russian store here in NYC. If you are lucky enough to have tea or markets like that nearby, good! If not, any dried wild herbal tea or even hibiscus tea would do.