Toddler-Friendly Broccoli and Cheese Quinoa Cups

Besides trying figuring out how to actually pronounce "Keen-Wah"...or " "Kee- NO - A" as my husband calls it (emphasis on the NO) many people just don't know how to cook the darn thing or what to do with it.  Health food snobs have been touting the benefits of this ancient grain for years and I am always on the hunt for new ways to make quinoa more interesting.

I've been feeding my toddler quinoa since she was 6 months old.  Instead of rice cereal, she had quinoa cereal.  And once she was a bit older (maybe 7-8 months) I started mixing in plain, full fat Greek yogurt and some organic unsweetened apple sauce into the quinoa.

Now that my toddler is, well, a toddler, and demands to eat on her own, I have been trying to find ways to make grains easier for her to harpoon with a fork or eat with her hands.  Enter baked quinoa cups!!  My dogs are pretty upset about this development, their greatest joy in life is serving as "toddler meal clean up crew". These cups hold together pretty well, and are 100000% times easier to eat for my toddler than just plain cooked quinoa, PLUS they are loaded with veggies.  There are countless combos that you can try with these cups, but I decided to make a batch of broccoli and cheese cups first. Verdict? My toddler demolished them! You could serve these "as-is", or with a side of meat protein depending on your dietary preference.  These can also be frozen if you want to make a giant batch of them!

Broccoli and Cheese Quinoa Cups



Ingredients:

2 cups cooked quinoa (recipe to follow)
2.5 cups chicken stock or vegetable stock
1/2 large white onion or 1 small onion
10 oz broccoli florets - cooked, steamed, etc
2 large eggs
2 cups Sharp cheddar cheese or any shredded cheese of your choice
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp paprika
Salt (pinch) and pepper (1-2 tsp)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350 and line a muffin pan with muffin liners or just spray it generously with non stick cooking spray.

Begin with your quinoa.  I know what the directions on the quinoa box say: it's a 2:1 ratio of liquid to quinoa and let it simmer for 15 mins and done.  WRONG!!!.  This always results in mushy/watery quinoa and it drives me bonkers.  Try it my way:

Bring 1.25 cups of chicken stock or liquid of your choice to a boil.  Add 1 cup of dried quinoa to the boiling liquid and stir.  Cover and place on low simmer (not totally on low) for around 12-14 minutes. Remove from heat and fluff quinoa with a fork.  This should yield perfect, non-mushy quinoa!!  You can easily double or triple this and freeze the cooked quinoa in Ziploc freezer bags for later use.  Just make sure you use that 1.25:1 liquid-to-quinoa ratio!

While your quinoa is cooking, heat up a non stick skillet with around 1 tsp of olive oil.  Mince your onion and add to the pan, cooking on medium high heat until onion is translucent, around 5 minutes.

Get out a large mixing bowl and add the cooked onions, cooked broccoli, eggs, cheese, oregano, paprika, black pepper, and cooked quinoa.  You can add a pinch of salt, but the chicken stock should have added sufficient salt to the quinoa already so you may not need too much.

I used a potato masher to smash up the cooked broccoli florets into teeny tiny pieces but you can always use a knife to do it!  Mix all the ingredients in your bowl very well.

Portion out the mixture into the muffin pan.  You should have some leftover mixture (unless you have a huge muffin pan!) so just stick the leftovers in the fridge to make another batch tomorrow!

Place in the oven for around 22-25 minutes.  Remove gently with a knife, or if you used muffin liners (smart), removal and clean up should be a pinch!  Let the cups cool a bit before serving.  Enjoy!!