Double Broccoli Quinoa Recipe

November 16, 2015 at 9:40 pm (101 cookbooks, B_minus (2.5 stars), Cruciferous rich, Grains, Sauce/dressing, Uncategorized)

We are big broccoli fans here. Even Alma loves broccoli. And pesto? Yes. So a double broccoli quinoa recipe with broccoli and broccoli pesto from 101cookbooks  — sounded great.  But it ended up being a surprising amount of work, and had an awfully lot of fat for something that didn’t taste particularly decadent. We didn’t love it. And there were a few things about the recipe that we found odd.

First of all, the recipe only has you cook the broccoli for 1 minute. That was fine for the broccoli that was blended into pesto, but we found the florets in the dish too crunchy. And we thought the ratio of broccoli to quinoa was off — definitely would add more florets next time.

I also find it suspicious that she only says to add half of the pesto to the dish. Why does she have you make twice as much as she thinks you’ll need, and not mention this in the head notes? I suspect that she really thinks you need all of it, but doesn’t want to scare her “health-conscious” readers away with how much olive oil and heavy cream and parmesan (and optionally avocado and feta or goat cheese and chile oil!) there is compared to the 5 measly cups of broccoli.

In any case, the dish tasted fine. But we had to get the food processor dirty, a pot to cook the quinoa in, and a pot to cook the broccoli in, plus a pan to toast the almonds in. It just seemed like too much work for something we didn’t really love. Derek said it tasted like pesto — but not a particularly distinguished version. Personally, I’d rather just have plain quinoa with steamed broccoli and olive oil and lemon juice. And sadly, Alma didn’t like it — I think because of the raw garlic in the pesto.

Rating: B

Derek: B