Quinoa Cakes

This week, to my great excitement, I received Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day from Rhonda, a lovely librarian and dear friend. The cookbook's first notable trait is that it is full of vegetarian recipes. It's always frustrating to pick up a cookbook and skip half of the content because I don't eat meat! With only a few exceptions, I can see myself trying every recipe in this book. Once I get settled for the summer, I may do just that.

Today, to break in the new book, I whipped up a batch of Little Quinoa Patties. I didn't quite have everything that the recipe called for, and adjusted it to be gluten free, so my adaptation is a little different than the original.

These are the ingredients I assembled:
4 large eggs, beaten
2.5 cups cooked quinoa
1/2 tsp salt
1 yellow onion, chopped
3/4 cups "breadcrumbs" made from gluten-free cereal
1/2 cup finely chopped broccoli florets
3 cloves finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
1 Tbl caramelized onion (leftover from earlier in the week)

You begin by combining the eggs and quinoa, then stir in the rest of the ingredients, adding the breadcrumbs last. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes before shaping into patties.

 The shaped patties are cooked on the stove in a little bit of olive oil. With the lid on the saute pan, cook for 5-7 minutes per side. I was nervous about under cooking the eggs, so my cakes got a little brown in their pursuit of the correct cooking time.

When finished, they were lovely. Not exactly a flavorful kick in the mouth, even with all that onion and garlic, but tasty none the less. I tried mine with barbecue sauce, sweet and sour sauce, and sour cream. In small amounts, each completed the flavors just fine. I think that if I'd had a stronger cheese on hand, instead of the mozzarella that was used, they'd have been more flavorful.

Overall the recipe was a success and will be added to my arsenal. I don't really like to eat quinoa on its own, so it's nice to have a recipe that it fits so perfectly into.