Curried Quinoa Salad

In a world where rice and wheat reign supreme, sometimes you want something more. Maybe you have a food allergy, maybe you have special health needs that your regular diet just isn't meeting, or maybe you just wanting more exciting than the status quo. Regardless of your reasons for upgrading your grain options, you've got an entire rainbow of whole grains to choose from besides rice and wheat.

Take, for example, the humble millet. Often thought of as only bird seed, millet is actually very much edible by humans. Mentioned in the Bible, people have been eating millet for many thousands of years in countries such as China, India, and Africa. What's so great about millet? Well, first of all, it's not acid-forming and is known for being easy to digest, so those who deal with any number of digestive ailments can usually enjoy millet without aggravating their GI. Taste-wise, Millet is mildly sweet with a nutty flavor and contains many beneficial nutrients, such as protein, fiber, B-vitamins, iron, magnesium, potassium, and more.

Another alternative grain you might consider is quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah). Another old-world grain, quinoa has also been cultivated for thousands of years in South America. The Inca revered quinoa as a very important part of their culture, and used it to make breads, cereals, and other dishes. Not technically a grain, quinoa is actually a grass seed, much like buckwheat.

Quinoa has a nutty, hearty flavor that makes it ideal for both savory dishes and sweet breakfast recipes. It is high in protein, calcium, iron, vitamin B, and vitamin E. The protein in quinoa a "complete protein" due to the presence of all eight essential amino acids, something that's not often seen in cereals or grains. Note: Before being eaten, quinoa grains must be rinsed to remove its bitter coating, called saponin. When rinsing quinoa, be sure to keep the water flowing until there are so soap-like suds when you agitate the seeds with your hands. Once the water runs clear, the saponin is gone.

Where can you buy millet and quinoa? You'll be happy to hear that both grains are readily available at health food stores, and if you like, you can even buy them online. While you can buy boxed millet and quinoa, you'll usually find them cheaper by shopping in the bulk section of your local natural foods store.

You can buy millet and quinoa in several different forms, as well:

• Puffed Millet Cereal
• Quinoa Pasta
• Quinoa Flakes for Hot Cereal
• Millet Flour for Making Bread

To get you started, here are a few recipes for these awesome grains. Once you give them a try, they might just become your new favorite carb!

Nutty Millet Porridge

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 cup raw millet
5 cups water
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
4 teaspoons butter
6 tablespoons honey
1/4 cup fresh blueberries or dried cranberries

Directions:
1. Heat a medium pot over medium heat. Add millet, stirring grains until they become fragrant. Add water and salt, and bring to a boil.

2. Simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until millet if soft like oatmeal. Add butter and honey, stirring well. Serve hot, topped with fruit.

Curried Quinoa Salad

Serves 6 as a side or 4 for lunch

Ingredients:
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lime juice
2 teaspoons yellow curry powder
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/3 cups uncooked quinoa
4 cups water
2 mangoes, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1 red bell pepper, seeded and cut into 1/4-inch chunks
1 fresh serrano chile, seeded and minced
1/4 cup fresh mint, chopped
1/2 cup salted roasted cashews or peanuts, chopped

Preparation:
1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together yogurt, lime juice, curry powder, ginger, salt, and pepper. Slowly drizzle in oil, whisking until fully combined.

2. Rinse quinoa in a bowl for 5 minutes, using fingers to agitate grains and the water runs through it. Agitating while rinsing will help remove the bitter saponin.

3. In a large pot, bring 4 cups of water to a boil with a few pinches of salt. Add quinoa to boiling water and cook for 15 minutes, until grains are almost completely cooked through but still just a little crunchy. Strain and rinse with cold water. Let sit to drain for 15 minutes.

4. Mix quinoa with curried yogurt and stir well. Stir in mango, bell pepper, Serrano chili, mint, and nuts. Serve at room temperature.

If you like these grain recipes, check out these other healthy, protein-rich posts:

• Peanut Butter Quinoa Cookies
• Quinoa Salmon Burgers
• Perfect Coconut Millet
• Millet Flatbread Tortilla
• Chickpea Spinach Curry Recipe
• How to Cook Dried Beans When You Don't Have Time to Cook Dried Beans

I love Kim Boyce. I went to see her at Omnivore Books and basically told her as much. I wrote a review about the cookbook, and I've featured a fabulous cookie recipe from it on my blog. I've convinced four friends to buy the book and I occasionally stalk Kim on Facebook and twitter. I did a little soul searching to try and identify the cause of my almost-obsession. After all, I own a heap of cookbooks--many of which inspire me daily. But Good to the Grain opens up a whole new world for those of us who love to bake and are also interested in whole grain flours, but have been stuck at the whole-wheat sign post, afraid to move on. Kim tested these recipes within an inch of their life and gave a tremendous amount of thought to which particular spices, fruits, and flavors would compliment each flour. The recipes are like jewels, really.

And that brings me to these scones. Ironically, after going on and on about Good to the Grain and the tried and true recipes, I'm going to go ahead and do something odd. Change the recipe. And not because the original printed recipe for Strawberry Barley Scones isn't absolutely heavenly--because it is. I didn't make huge changes. The flour and butter ratios remain the same. But I wanted a little crunch so I toasted hazelnuts and added them in, and I love the flavor of cherry and hazelnut so I used black cherry jam instead of strawberry. Last, I used turbinado sugar on the top more for aesthetic reasons than anything--it browns up beautifully and leaves the top of each scone especially rustic looking.

Spreading black cherry jam onto the bottom layer

If you've never worked with barley flour before, get ready for a treat. It's a light, rather fine flour that lends a certain nutty, almost creaminess that would be otherwise impossible using 100% all-purpose or whole wheat flour. The bits of butter make the scones nice and crumbly, and the jam baked into the center practically caramelizes around the edges. They're lovely to look at and even lovelier to eat. With coffee. With tea. Alone. With friends. At midnight. You get the picture.

Sprinkling toasted hazelnuts, buttering the top, slicing, and baking

Another thing I admire about Kim Boyce is her absolute excitement about each grain, but also the encouraging way she asks you to experiment on your own. This isn't natural for bakers: we tend to be big measurers and followers. So while I think you need to get to know how the flours work first (each works well with a certain amount of liquid and a certain proportion of another kind of flour to balance its gluten content), have some fun. As Kim says, "Once you are comfortable with the recipes, use them as your guide. Be creative. Experiment." So that I did. And Kim (and I) would encourage you to the same.

Black Cherry and Hazelnut Scones
Adapted from: Good to the Grain
Kim likes kosher salt in baked goods. It truly brings out the flavor. While you may find the quantity a bit more than you're used to, jump on the bandwagon. These scones are best right out of the oven or eaten the same day. Store in an air-tight container if you plan to keep them until the next morning.

Ingredients
Dry Mix:
1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. barley flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/4 tsp. kosher salt

Wet Mix:
4 ounces (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg

To Finish:
1/2 cup black cherry jam (or any jam of your choosing)
1 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted and chopped
1 Tbsp. turbinado (or raw) sugar

Preparation
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place a rack in the center of the oven. Spray baking sheet with non-stick spray or rub lightly with butter.
2. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Pour back into the bowl any bits remaining in the sifter.
3. On a separate baking sheet (not the one you buttered for the scones), toast the hazelnuts for ten minutes or until fragrant. Let cool and slough off majority of skin. Place in plastic bag; crush with a mallet or back end of a metal spoon until they're in small pieces.
4. Cut the butter into 1/2-inch pieces and add them to the dry mixture. Use your hands to rub the butter between your fingers and the dry mixture, breaking it into smaller bits. Continue this until the butter is in sizes ranging from rice grains to small peas. Work quickly so the butter doesn't warm (important to this recipes).
5. In a small bowl, whisk buttermilk and egg, adding to dry mixture and mixing until barely combined.
6. Transfer the dough onto a well-floured surface. If the dough's too sticky to handle, dust with flour and fold a few more times.
7. Flour your hands, divide dough into two pieces, and pat each piece into a disk 3/4 inch thick and 7-8 inches in diameter.
8. Cover one disk with jam, then sprinkle toasted hazelnuts on top of this layer. Top the spread with the other disk, and press down gently so the dough settles onto the jam.
9. Brush the dough lightly with the melted butter and sprinkle the turbinado sugar on top. Use a sharp knife to slice into 8 triangular wedges and place on a baking sheet leaving a few inches between each.
10. Bake for 22-26 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through. The scones are ready when they're golden brown on top and some of the jam is bubbling through the center. Let cool on a baking rack.

Makes: 8 scones

The other week, when visiting some old friends at their home in Redwood City to dine on sous vide leg of lamb, I was somewhat surprised/amused that the lady of the house had chosen to serve a salad of quinoa as an accompaniment.

"Quinoa, eh?" I said to the man of the house. He shot me a little look that said, "Oh crap, you're not going to bring that up again, are you?"

Well, yes, I am. I'm even writing a little blog post about it.

So there.

When we were in college, this friend of mine and I were out at some sort of social gathering where eating occurred. There was a woman present from his World Arts and Cultures department whom he was trying to impress. I remember her as very attractive in a Berkeley/unwashed/sandal-wearing/patchouli-smelling sort of way. In other words, just up my friend's alley (at the time), so to speak.

He sat next to her on a long bench. He complimented her outfit, saying something to the tune of "I really like your skirt. It's so... Third World." When this failed to win her over, he stepped things up by making a comment about the food on her plate:

"Ahhh, keen-waaaah," he said with deliberate flair. "That's an ancient grain, you know."

Frankly, if any man said this to me, I would have been automatically intrigued. Was he kidding? Was his field of study ancient grains? Was he really that interested in my diet?

Whatever this girl was thinking, she was relatively unmoved by my friend's covert attempts at wooing, which means (in my book) that she couldn't have been very interesting (or smart) to begin with. No matter how many yards of Third World fabric she had on.

And I can't say that I'm sorry, since I'm rather fond of the woman he ended up marrying. I mean, she knows about the quinoa pitch and serves it up as a loving, quiet joke.

Like sous vide lamb and quinoa salad, my friend and his wife are an excellent, interesting pairing.

Quinoa Salad

I've chosen to go, if not Third World, then New World with this one. Quinoa, tomatoes, and corn* (or, as 1/8th of my ancestors call it, maize), just like my friends did.

Quinoa, if you didn't know by now, is an ancient grain-- it's been cultivated in the Andes for at least 5,000 years. Though the locals regarded it as sacred, I think it may be a stretch to call it, as some do, "The gold of the Inkas." I somehow doubt Pizarro would have been satisfied had the captured emperor Atahualpa offered him a roomful of quinoa as his ransom instead of actual gold.

Of course, Pizarro wasn't exactly satisfied with a roomful of real gold either, since he eventually had the poor emperor strangled.

A roomful of quinoa would have been a hell of a lot cheaper, if you ask me.

The addition of corn is an inspired touch, given the fact that the Spanish so scorned quinoa as "food for Indians" and detested its sacredness that they banned the cultivation of the grain, forcing the conquered people to grow corn in its place.

Apart from the added sweetness, corn adds a delicious touch of cultural tension.

Besides, it's fun to play with corn silk. Think: Farrah Fawcett hair.

Serves six.

Ingredients:

For the salad:

1 cup quinoa

2 cups cold water

2 ears of sweet yellow corn (about 2 cups)

A tablespoon of oil to coat the corn

1 cup diced (or simply cut in half) cherry tomatoes

1 cup diced squash (I chose a darling little green type the name of which I have forgotten. It adds a bit of color and is, of course, New World)

As much goat cheese as you like, which is entirely optional, since goats were introduced to the New World by the Spanish.

For the vinaigrette:

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (Virgins, though it has been argued, were not introduced by the Spaniards, so they're okay to use.)

1/4 cup white wine or champagne vinegar

A pinch of salt

As much freshly ground pepper as you like

Preparation:

1. Rinse quinoa in cold, running water. Drain. It is best to use a mesh strainer for this exercise, otherwise you likely wash most of the grain down the sink.

2. In a medium pot, place quinoa and two cups of cold water. Bring to a boil, then cover pot and lower heat to a simmer. This takes about 15 minutes. Remove cover and fluff quinoa with a fork. Let cool.

3. Rub corn with oil (you can use corn oil, for all it matters, but I used olive oil), put the ears in some sort of roasting vessel like a cast iron pan or what-have-you, and place vessel in a 400°F oven to roast, turning occasionally to brown. This takes about 15 minutes, so you might as well be doing this while your quinoa is cooking. You do read through a recipe before executing it, don't you? Good. I thought so. The corn is finished when the kernels are turgid with juice. Remove corn from oven, let cool enough to handle, then cut from cob. Set aside.

4. When quinoa and corn are cool, add them to a large bowl. To these two culturally conflicting grains add the diced tomato and squash. Toss gently with a large spoon.

5. To make the vinaigrette, place all vinaigrette ingredients into a mason jar, apply the lid tightly and shake it vigorously until the oil and vinegar have emulsified. Pour dressing over the quinoa salad and toss again gently.

6. Transfer your salad to the serving dish of your choosing-- hopefully some sort of Pre-Columbian pottery vessel-- and sprinkle with the purely-optional cheese. Serve with lamb to your only-slightly-annoyed husband.

* You might notice the presence of red onion in this photograph. It was merely an experiment in flavor. It added an unnecessary sharpness to the salad which I have since omitted.

It all started with pancakes. As many great things do. Kim Boyce, former pastry chef at Spago and Campanile, left the industry to settle down and have a family. At home, she was inspired to bake but wanted to create healthy options for her kids without spending all day in the kitchen. While shopping at the market, Boyce picked up a small sack of Bob's Red Mill 10 Grain Pancake Mix. Later in the day, her young daughter was hungry and there wasn't an immediate plan for meal-time, so Boyce grabbed the flour and added in apples, pureed beets, milk, eggs and butter and had some darn fine (and unique) pancakes on her hands. This began her interest in cooking with whole grains. And I'm so, so thankful that this interest turned into a minor obsession and a very real talent, yielding her special cookbook, Good to the Grain.

I'm much more of a baker than a cook, and I often experiment with whole wheat flours in certain recipes--thinking I'm making a cake or cookie recipe that much healthier. It makes me feel somehow o.k. when I go back for a second (or third) portion. But Boyce makes a point that this book isn't just about substituting a whole grain flour in place of white flour. She's spent time getting to know the flavor profile of each type of grain and the texture that each lends to baked goods. In her Introduction, Boyce notes:

"Baking with whole-grain flours is about balance, about figuring out how to get the right combination of structure and flavor from flours that don’t act the same way as regular white flour.”

And the recipes are truly original and insanely appealing. From strawberry barley scones to muscovado sugar cake to ginger peach muffins -- morning and evening treats are included and photographed beautifully by Quentin Bacon. Bacon knows how to photograph rustic desserts, capturing the simplicity of a scene, the slight dimness of morning light, and evocative shots of half-eaten desserts. This book has been on my bedside for the past two weeks and I look forward to crawling into bed and climbing into Boyce and Bacon's world each night. Actually, it's a world I'd prefer never to leave.

The book itself is organized logically, with twelve different grains/flours covered and each chapter donated to one of them. For example, Boyce begins with a chapter on whole wheat flour and ends with spelt. Somewhere in between you'll find recipes that include amaranth, teff, rye, kamut, buckwheat--and so on. There are 74 recipes total, and Boyce gives a great list of online sources to order some of the grains (page 200). After all, not all of us are lucky enough to have Rainbow Grocery or other natural foods stores with great bulk sections in our backyard.

Now generally with a book review worth its weight, the author will have cooked or baked from the book and will perhaps include a recipe for readers to try. I have done neither of those things. You see, this interesting thing has happened where a few friends and a coworkers have brought me treats made from Boyce's book. That's actually how I first learned of it. So while I haven't exactly baked from it myself, I've tried her chocolate chip cookies (and they're absolutely fantastic: chewy yet sturdy and studded with hand-chopped chocolate), the gingersnaps and the chocolate babka. We're not talking healthy deprivation here. We're talking pure joy and indulgence. That being said, I understand some of you may be seeking out a bit more information and authority on Boyce's recipes. So here are a few of my food-blogging colleagues and friends who have detailed their hands-on experiences with the book:

• Figgy Buckwheat Scones from 101 Cookbooks
• Carrot Spelt Muffins from Pithy and Cleaver
• Honey Amaranth Waffles from Fake Food Free
• Olive Oil Cake from the Wednesday Chef
• Muesli from 5 Second Rule

To close, I'm moving again. More on that later. But as you all know, moving has a way of forcing you to purge things you're not using and packing up the things you want to hold onto. I have trouble letting go of cookbooks, but I did donate a few this time around to make room for some new ones and to make life just a little easier come moving day. But I know for a fact that Good to the Grain isn't going anywhere. I've never been so excited to read, absorb each word and tip, and bake and bake and bake from a book. While I hope this move will be almost the last for a very long time, I know that Boyce's book will make it into any U-Haul that crosses my path for many years to come.

In the forward to the book, Nancy Silverton notes,

My first impulse when I’m tasting a dish or a baked good I’ve never had before is to think about how I would do it differently, how I would improve upon it. I love it when I come across something and think ‘This is perfect! I wouldn’t change a thing!’"

I agree. Wholeheartedly.

We're all fortunate here in the Bay Area because Kim Boyce is speaking at Omnivore Books tonight. Come and pick up a book and meet my new baking legend in person. Here are the details:

Monday, May 24th at Omnivore Books: 6-7 p.m.
3885 Cesar Chavez Street
San Francisco, CA 94131
(415) 282-4712

If you've never heard of wheat berries, you're not alone. When I mentioned to a few people that I wanted to write about them, I received some quizzical looks. So, for anyone not familiar with this whole grain, let me end the suspense: wheat berries are simply individual kernels of wheat. They are what King Arthur and other grain companies mill to produce baking flours, from whole wheat to cake and all-purpose. And, just as there are many different types of wheat, there are just as many types of wheat berries, with their color ranging from light tan to a reddish brown. But the most important thing about wheat berries, at least as far as this post is concerned, is that they are scrumptious.

Other than a short stint in the 70s, when the health-food craze hit the United States, wheat berries have been mostly ignored in this country. This is a shame, as these plump and hearty grains are really worth experiencing. With a slightly nutty flavor and a mild chewy consistency, they are wonderful in soups, stews and salads.

My desire to cook wheat berries was born out of a decadent weekend away eating gooey homemade macaroni and cheese, King Ranch casserole, and plenty of breakfast sausage and bacon. After indulging, I craved something moderate and almost ascetic for my next dinner. But because I was starving when I shopped, I also yearned for something hearty and substantial. All this made me reach for a bag of wheat berries at the grocery store, along with, I'm embarrassed to admit, some andouille sausage. So much for an austere lifestyle.

Now before I detail how ridiculously healthy wheat berries are, let me reiterate that they are delightful to eat. Too often, people associate healthy foods with bland or disagreeable flavors (which I think has more to do with under seasoning and overcooking, but that's another story). Yet regardless of nutrition, wheat berries and other whole grains are worth eating simply because they have more complex and nuanced flavors than your standard jasmine or basmati rice. Yes, they're also healthier, but I'm no martyr (remember, I'm the one who bought andouille sausage for my minimalist meal): my real reason for eating wheat berries is because they have so much flavor.

Okay, here's the health info. According to a smarty pants nutritional study at Harvard, there is a "connection between eating whole grains and better health." Eating wheat berries and other whole grains lowers your risk for cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. These grains additionally offer modest protection against colorectal cancer and also just keep everything moving along nicely -- yes, that is exactly what I mean. They are full of fiber, protein and iron. Oh, and did I mention they're really yummy? What more do you need?

Following are a few wheat berry recipes. The first two I've made and loved, and the rest are recipes I hope to try soon. But you don't have to have a specific wheat berry recipe to try this amazing grain. Just use it in place of brown or white rice for your next meal.

If you have a good wheat berry recipe, please share it in the comments section as I'm looking to expand my repertoire.

Cooking Wheat Berries
Wheat berries are great plain, but because you need to cook this grain before you can include it other recipes, you'll need to cook them ahead of time even if you're adding them to soups, salads or stews. Here are some basic instructions for cooking light wheat berries (which are more common than the darker red variety). If you purchase darker red wheat berries, you may need to soak them overnight, but just follow the package directions to be on the safe side.

Makes: 2 cups

Ingredients:
1 cup wheat berries
3 cups water
1 tsp salt

Preparation:

1. Place all ingredients in a medium covered pot.
2. Bring water to a boil and then simmer for 45 minutes to one hour or until done.
3. Drain off any excess water.

Note: One day when I needed to leave the house for a bit, I simmered the wheat berries for a half hour and then turned off the heat and left the pot covered. By the time I returned to the house, the wheat berries were fully cooked and ready to use.

Popped Wheat Berries

One fun way to eat wheat berries is to pop them like popcorn. They're small, so the grains mostly just crack rather than pop, but after seasoning with some sea salt, they are nonetheless downright lip-smackingly tasty to nibble on. They are also a great addition to salads.

Unlike pop corn kernals, you need to first partially cook wheat berries to soften them before placing them in a hot pan. I usually just add extra wheat berries to a pot that I'm making and then pull them out after about 15 minutes of simmering (leaving the remainder to thoroughly cook through according to the instructions above).

Makes: 1/2 cup popped wheat berries

Ingredients:
1/2 cup partially-cooked wheat berries (simmered for 15 minutes only)
1 tsp vegetable or olive oil
Salt to taste

Preparation:

1. Dry wheat berries on a dish towel or with paper towels to pat off the extra moisture from boiling.
2. Place berries in a dry pan on high heat (cast iron works great, but any steel or iron pan that is not non-stick will work well). The grains will now continue to dry in the pan. Be sure to continually shake or stir the grains so as not to burn them.
3. Once all the moisture seems to have evaporated (about 1-2 minutes), add in the oil and continue to shake the pan while the grains begin to pop. Once the wheat berries are mostly popped, remove them from the pan and season with salt.
4. Eat as a snack or as a topping for salads.

Wheat Berries Sautéed with Andouille Sausage, Asparagus and Almonds

This dish is like an eclectic group of friends. They're all unique apart, but together they work. Spicy andouille wants to be the star and steal all the attention, but her steady and charming friend wheat berries keeps her balanced, while fun-loving asparagus adds a loveable charm to the group. Meanwhile, nutty almond is cracking jokes. I agree that this analogy is a bit lame, but still, this is how this dish tastes.

Makes: 4 servings

Ingredients:
2 cups cooked wheat berries
4 andouille sausage links
1/2 cup chopped raw almonds
4 scallions (the white and green parts)
6-8 asparagus stalks with the ends trimmed off and cut into 1/2-inch pieces.
1 tsp olive oil

Preparation:

1. Chop sausage into 1/2-inch pieces and cook in a medium-sized pan until thoroughly browned. Remove and place in a bowl.
2. Saute scallions in the same pan, adding a bit of olive oil if needed (although the sausage grease will most likely be sufficient). Remove from the pan when slightly crisp, placing in the same bowl as the sausage.
3. Brown almonds in the pan and then set in the sausage bowl.
4. Add oil to the pan and then saute asparagus for 2 minutes or until al dente.
5. Add cooked sausage and scallions, along with the browned almonds to the asparagus in the pan and then add in the cooked wheat berries. Mix thoroughly, season with salt and pepper, and serve.

Other Wheat Berry Recipes

Wheat Berries with Sesame, Soy Sauce and Scallions
Wheat Berry Breakfast Bowl
Wheat Berry Pudding

Whole grains. Those are the grains you are supposed to be getting three servings of a day. They are also possibly hiding out in mysterious jars in your pantry. Well, it's time to clean out the cupboard and begin again. Stop passing by the Bob's Red Mill display and grab some packages, because more help than ever is available to get you to use them. Three recent cookbooks combine accessibility with a very low earth mama quotient.

You know the whole grain trend has gone mainstream when Betty Crocker puts out a cookbook on the subject. Betty Crocker Whole Grains: Easy Everyday Recipes is a pretty good one too. There are recipes that use whole grain breakfast cereal and whole grain bread in addition to just the grains themselves. As the name suggests, these recipes have a tendency to lean toward the short and easy, this is not a cookbook for the aspiring gourmet chef. But it's actually a great choice for those times when you aren't feeling overly adventurous. Recipes like S'more Swirl Bread and Take-Along Oatmeal Bars appeal to the junk food junkie in all of us. The Best Ever Oatmeal Brown Bread could well become a staple in your baking repertoire and even if you're not a baker, recipes for quick breads like muffins and scones will con your significant other in thinking you are. All told, there are 140 recipes divided into chapters such as Better Breakfasts, Best Breads, Dinners in 30 Minutes, Slow Cooker Sides and Meals, and Delicious Desserts. A chart with cooking times, suggestions for flavor boosters and a full color photo of 20 different grains are all smart additions.

The Complete Whole Grains Cookbook: 150 Recipes for Healthy Living is a weighty tome. With 150 recipes and in-depth background material that includes nutritional and culinary profiles, general cooking times, and storage information, this book could have been subtitled, "everything you ever wanted to know about whole grains but were afraid to ask." For instance, did you know that whole grains make particularly tasty ingredients for salad? The whole grain salads in this book include such appealing offerings as Kasha and Beet Salad with Celery and Feta, Cranberry Pecan Couscous Salad, and Millet Salad with Lemony Chickpeas and Tomatoes.

The slimmest of the volumes, The New Whole Grains Cookbook: Terrific Recipes Using Farro, Quinoa, Brown Rice, Barley, and Many Others begins with descriptions and nutritional information for 17 different whole grains. Primarily a vegetarian book, there are plenty of company worthy dishes like Whole Wheat Potato Gnocchi with Truffle Oil and Mushrooms, Pecan and Wild Rice Stuffed Squash and Thai Coconut Fried Rice with Basil and Shrimp or Tofu. Over 75 recipes and 28 color photos will tempt you into trying something new and delicious. Don't be fooled by the emphasis on vegetarian entrees. The focus is on flavor too, as much or even more than health. Proving once and for all, whole grains aren't just for hippies.

I'm a bit of a skeptic when it comes to whole grains. You know the ones I mean: Amaranth. Millet. Quinoa. Teff. They sound faintly exotic, like semiprecious jewels or new colors from the Pottery Barn paint collection. But they also have a hippie-dippy air about them, and I like my food full of flavor (and my underarms shaved, thank-you-very-much).

With superstar bloggers like Heidi Swanson constantly singing their praises, though, lately I've started to waver. But something held me back. And then I went out and ate nine desserts in one sitting -- a feast so ridiculous even Dionysus himself would have surely chided me for it -- and I began looking about for ways to eat healthier. As luck would have it, The Wheat-Free Cook (William Morrow, $24.95) arrived in my mailbox during this moment of curiosity, and the first recipe to catch my eye was quinoa salad with cucumber, tomato, and mint.

Since that sounded like a dish for a warm, sunny day, I decided to call up the book's author while I waited for such a day to appear on San Francisco's foggy horizon. Jacqueline Mallorca is a local food writer who started her career by writing the first ever Williams-Sonoma catalog and later became an editorial assistant to James Beard and a San Francisco Chronicle food columnist. She now has more than 11 cookbooks to her name.

A little over ten years ago, Jackie was diagnosed with celiac disease. For Jackie and 1.5 million Americans, that means gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, makes them sick. Like most newly diagnosed sufferers, she was taken aback by all the foods she could suddenly no longer eat -- bread, pancakes, crackers, cereal.

"Being a cook, a foodie from way back, I laughed heartily at the diet sheet I was handed, and said, 'Oh no, I can do better than that.' I started reinventing the way that I cook," Jackie told me over the phone.

That meant shifting to nut flours for cakes and cookies, rice flour for things like pasta or bread, and the aforementioned hippie-dippy grains I've been suspiciously eyeing for years. After spending a decade cooking gluten-free, she collected some of her favorite recipes in The Wheat-Free Cook.

Even though I can eat gluten, flipping through those recipes made my tummy rumble. They looked simple and sounded delicious: onion-Gruyere tart, Asian stick noodles with pork and asparagus, cornmeal and cheese shortbread.

Jackie says that her restrictions have actually made her cooking better. "A lot of the time, particularly if I'm making cookies and little petit fours and cakes with nut flours, they turn out much more delicious than the original versions because you're using such fine ingredients. Cakes made with ground almonds and the best quality [cocoa] powder and three or four eggs taste wonderful because they taste of the almonds and the good stuff," she reported.

I wanted to know more about all the funky grains that peppered the book, so I asked her what she couldn't do without, even if she could eat gluten again. "I'd never stop using quinoa because it cooks up very fluffy, and it makes the best grain salad because it doesn't go hard like rice does when it's chilled. I wouldn't give up on millet because it makes a really terrific pilaf. I wouldn't give up on teff flour because it makes the best brownies under the sun," she readily answered. "I find it's like cooking in color instead of cooking in black and white."

The sheer poetry of her answer inspired me to dig deeper into the cookbook. I went out and bought white rice flour to use for dredging sautéed foods in based on Jackie's observation that it's less gummy than flour. I dog-eared a recipe for peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies and another one for chocolate-hazelnut truffle cake (healthy eating having been long forgotten at this point). And yes, I bought some red quinoa.

A sunny day finally appeared, and I set to making the salad. I tossed in a bit of roasted chicken to make it a meal, subbed some spicy cayenne pepper for fresh ground black, and let it sit in the fridge so the flavors could introduce themselves. "Hiya," I imagined the cucumber saying. "How fresh!" would be the radish's sharp reply. But the quinoa just sat there, still and gentle, subtly flavorful, and down-to-earth. Yum.

Quinoa Salad with Cucumber, Tomato, and Mint
Serves 4-6

Recipe adapted and reprinted with permission from The Wheat-Free Cook by Jacqueline Mallorca, William Morrow, $24.95.

2 cups gluten-free vegetable broth
1 cup red or yellow quinoa, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded roasted chicken
1 cucumber (about 8 ounces), peeled, seeded, and chopped
2 large, ripe tomatoes, finely chopped, preferably heirloom
4 green onions, thinly sliced
8 radishes, finely chopped
¼ cup chopped mint
½ cup chopped parsley
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Fine sea salt and cayenne pepper

1. Bring the broth to a boil over high heat. Add the quinoa, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the grains are tender and the liquid is absorbed, about 15 minutes. The grains will turn transparent, and the white germ ring will show. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool.

2. Add the chicken, cucumber, tomatoes, green onions, radishes, mint, and parsley. Whisk together the olive oil and vinegar, and season to taste with salt and cayenne pepper. Pour over the quinoa and vegetables, and mix gently but thoroughly. Taste for seasoning and adjust as needed. Serve at room temperature.

I've never been a big fan of oatmeal, or any hot mushy cereal. Yik. But a few years ago, I discovered steel-cut oats, which are also known as coarse-cut oats, Irish oats, Scotch oats, and pinhead oats (I like that name the best). Steel-cut oats are chopped oat groats, which only have the outer hull removed, so they are more nutritious than the more popular rolled oats. They are also nuttier, more flavorful, and retain a chewy texture. Like most whole grains, however, they take a while to cook, so you have to plan ahead. Most upscale supermarkets carry steel-cut oats, and Bob's Red Mill makes a superior packaged product. If you can find them, it's a good idea to purchase these in bulk as they tend to be fresher.

These are perfect for a rainy, chilly winter weekend morning when you are lounging around reading the paper and have 45 minutes to kill. I like my oatmeal with fruit, preferably seasonal, and since I typically eat this in the winter, I often make it with sauteed apples. A drizzle of pure maple syrup is also delicious.

Steel-Cut Oats with Apples

Serves 4

Ingredients:

For the oats:
3 1/2 cups water
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup steel-cut oats
1/2 teaspoon salt

For the apples:
2-3 medium apples, peeled and cored
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
Pinch of cinnamon

Preparation:

To make the oats, in a large saucepan, bring the water and milk to a slow boil. Meanwhile, melt the 2 tablespoons butter in a frying pan and add the oats. Toast the oats for about 15 minutes, until golden and toasty. Add the oats and the salt to the boiling water, and cook, stirring occasionally, until thick and creamy (but not mushy), about 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the apples, cut the apples into medium chunks. Melt the butter in a frying pan, then add the apples, sugar, and cinnamon. Cook, stirring occasionally, until crisp-tender and caramelized, about 15 minutes.

Serve the oatmeal topped with the apples. MMMMMmmmmmm.