Quinoa Raisin Muffins

I've been watching a lot of Martha Stewart Living lately. About a week or so ago, she did a segment on quinoa muffins and it looked really good. So off to the store we went over the weekend and I picked up some quinoa. I actually got 2 kinds, a white and a black quinoa. Supposedly, black quinoa is nuttier in flavor. I opted to use the white since that's the version Martha used.

Here's what the quinoa looked like after cooking.
Below is Martha's recipe with my modifications added.

Ingredients:

1 C quinoa, rinsed
1/4 C vegetable oil (I used canola oil), plus more for pan
2 C all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
3/4 C packed dark-brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 C raisin (I added about 3/4 C)
3/4 C whole milk
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium saucepan, bring quinoa and 1 C water to boil. Reduce to a simmer; cover, and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender, 11-13 minutes.

Meanwhile, brush a standard 12-cup muffin pan with oil (I used 24-mini cup muffin pans), dust with flour, tapping out excess. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt raisins, and 2 C cooked quinoa; reserve any leftover quinoa for another use (we added this to some leftover pasta fazool).

In a small bowl, whisk together oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add milk mixture to flour mixture, and stir just until combined; divide batter among prepared muffin cups. (I filled mine up just to the rim--had enough for 2 batches, total of 48 little muffins.)

Bake until toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. (It took about 17 minutes in the mini pans.) Cool muffins in pan, 5 minutes; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container up to 5 days.

A note on cooling muffins in the pan for 5 minutes. I only

cooled for about 3 minutes in the pan since I noticed that the bottom of muffins from the first pan was starting to get a little moist from condensation.

As far as taste, it was really good. Better than I had anticipated. Maybe it's because I wasn't sure what the quinoa would taste like baked but it gave the muffins a really nice nutty flavor. For me, this is good because I can get the nutty flavor without the nuts because I usually don't like nuts in my dishes. Why? I don't know, just one of those odd eating ticks, I guess. I think it's really because some nuts get soggy or chewy when cooked in dishes. And I prefer a crunchy bite when eating nuts. The subtle sweetness was just perfect for a breakfast muffin. Or even a little snack when you just want a little something.

There's a lot of recipes for quinoa. Martha has one for a quinoa and corn salad that I like to try, as well as Kirk's salad at mmm-yoso!! This is good because I have 1 1/2 bags of quinoa to make.

Have a wonderful week. Stay dry and eat well.