Saturday, May 1, 2010

Quinoa Zucchini Casserole

I have no idea what to call this dish. It is not a typical casserole in any way. There are people who call pretty much anything a casserole that has vegetables and is not a dessert and is baked, but as per the definition, it is meat or vegetables or both baked in a creamy sauce which has some flour as a binder. Since I didn't know what my creation is to be called, I am calling it a 'Casserole'. It was just an experiment and it came out very good and in fact I am going to be making this as a regular food since it can be served as a one pot meal.

Ingredients:
  • Quinoa - 1/2 cup cooked and cooled
  • Whole wheat flour - 1/2 cup
  • Salt - 1 tsp or to taste
  • Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp or to taste (Optional)
  • Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
  • Cumin seeds - 1/2 tsp
  • Zuccchini - 1 medium grated
  • Tomato - 1 small
  • Vegetable oil - 4 TBSP
  • Silken tofu - blended and measured 1/2 cup (You could use yogurt or sour cream if you don't like tofu)
  • Water or milk - 4 TBSP (I used water)
  • Choice of herbs - 2 TBSP fresh I used mint (You could use cilantro, basil or combination)

Method:
In a large bowl, put grated zucchini, chopped tomato, oil, tofu, water, herbs, quinoa. Mix well with a spatula. In another bowl, mix wheat flour, salt, chilli powder, cumin, baking powder. Stir to mix well. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to mix. Batter will not be very smooth. Preheat the oven to 375 F if using aluminum pan. I was using a glass 8" square dish so preheated to 350 F. Grease the pan lightly with vegetable oil spray. Pour the batter and smooth the top. Bake in the oven for about 40 - 45 minutes or till set and a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. The edges will have started browning. Remove from the oven and let it cool on the wire rack. This can be served hot or warm. I cooled it so that I could cut it to a nice piece. It is kind of hard to cut into a piece like a cake when still hot. This tastes really good. Since the spices were very mild, I served the adults (me and my husband) with some tomato chilli sauce. Kids ate with ketchup.

I am sending this to Madhuram's 'Whole Grain Baking - Quinoa'.
Here is another picture which was taken in the night with yellow light - straight from the oven.

Variations:
You can experiment with other vegetables but baking time will vary since zucchini has so much of water. You could make it with spinach, onions, combination of other vegetables.
Happy Baking!!

13 comments:

  1. A very nice and healthy quinoa casserole.Nice pic.

    I have a quick question for you.I would like to participate in your weekly bake-off event,can I submit my older recipes or should they be made the same week that I send.Let me know.

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  2. Thanks for answering my previous question.
    I posted baked fries on Apr29th and I also posted a pizza recipe on Apr28th can I send these both entries to you for this weeks bakeoff?Let me know.

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  3. awesome creation!!bookmarked!

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  4. A very healthy casserole! Nice perfect squares!

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  5. Beautiful and healthy casserole.. good for breakfast.. Loved the combination of quinoa and zucchini..

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  6. Champa, this looks simply superb :)

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  7. Looks great!! Nice that you could use quinoa for a baked dish. Its so versatile.

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  8. That's something different Champa. But I doubt if yogurt/sour cream would work in this recipe because it cannot act as a binder which tofu does in this case. Its my guess. Thanks for sending it to the event. I'm sending you a mail.

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  9. Madhuram, Thanks for letting me know that you got it. Sourcream or yogurt will work here. I know since I had converted another recipe which had spinach, onions and eggs into eggless and had used yogurt in its place. It came out just fine.

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  10. A word to the wise - don't put this in the food processor to make it smooth. It never solidifies, it was just mush. Tasty mush though!

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  11. Sujatha, Thanks for leaving a comment. I have mentioned that the batter will not be smooth and it comes out fine. Curious to know why you put them in the food processor though.

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  12. I used the food processor to make the tofu smooth and then figured I would just mix everything else in with it. Maybe with that process, it would be better to leave the quinoa and zucchini to the end and just hand-stir it in.

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