Spanish Style Quinoa

From Chef Oonagh Williams of Royal Temptations Catering

Spanish Style Quinoa

Spanish rice is well known in many households. I make this dish using quinoa as a substitute to get more flavor and more nutrition from the added ingredients. For my plain cooked quinoa recipe, click here.

Ingredients

1. 2 tbsp (30 ml) olive oil
2. 1 x 12 oz (375g/ 4 sausages) packet Al Fresco ready cooked, gluten-free, sweet and smoky barbecue chicken sausages. Cut in half lengthwise and cut into ½ inch (1 cm) pieces.  Nice bit of heat but not lethal.
3. 1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
4. 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely crushed
5. 1 medium zucchini (courgette), quartered lengthwise and cut into ½ inch (1 cm) pieces.
6. 1 medium yellow squash, quartered lengthwise and cut into ½ inch pieces.
7. ½ red bell pepper, deseeded and cut into 1-2 inch squares (2.5-5 cm) (you can use green or yellow peppers, I just use red for sweeter flavor and different color)
8. 4 large mushrooms, cleaned, halved and sliced

How To Cook

1. Heat oil in a skillet big enough for the sausages, vegetables and cooked quinoa. 
2. Add onions and cook over medium heat until they start softening.
3. Add sausage to the pan and cook until they look a bit browned.  Be careful not to overcook and burn the onions.
4. Add zucchini, squash, garlic and red pepper, cook until as soft or crisp as you like. 
5. Add mushrooms and cook for additional 1-2 minutes.
6. Stir in cooked quinoa, turn off heat and leave to sit, covered, for a few minutes while flavors blend.

My husband likes chopped cashews and some feta cheese on top of this recipe. Think of making this without the sausages but with nuts and any cheese for a meatless Monday or any other day. Tailor it to be suitable for vegetarians and vegans without cheese or meat stock. This recipe is great reheated so don’t be afraid to make extras. 

Use any selection of vegetables, try different cooked sausages, but remember that many raw and cooked sausages are not gluten-free and that far too many butchers do not know different words for gluten and far too frequently these sausages do not clearly say if they contain gluten. Rusk is a common ingredient in sausages and is not gluten-free. Al Fresco makes a wide range of cooked and raw gluten-free sausages and they are basically naturally gluten-free. For spiciness they also make a sausage with jalapeno and one called buffalo. Jones Dairy Farm makes sausages, bacon, ham, sausage meat labeled gluten free. So use whichever sausage you can buy or can eat.  We don’t like a lot of spicy heat so this sausage was just right for us. Al Fresco has spinach and feta, sun dried tomato, buffalo, jalapeño (both of those I find give heat but not much flavor).  Al Fresco makes a small chicken, apple, maple breakfast sausage which we enjoy with pancakes, waffles etc, but we find the regular size sausage is too sweet for us for Dinner. I’ve also added cut up sun dried tomatoes and fresh baby spinach in the past. 

You can find Chef Oonagh Williams at Gluten-Free Cooking with Oonagh on Facebook, LinkedIn or her website. Chef Oonagh has a culinary arts degree, celiac disease and other food allergies. Remember most real food is naturally gluten-free until manufacturers ‘mess’ around with it and only baking really needs changing.