Quinoa Patties

With the beginning of the new year, like most people, one of my "new years resolutions" was to eat healthier and exercise more.

I've never really been one for dieting but I wanted to indulge less and hopefully feel a little healthier. Be doing things this way I found it a lot easier to eat healthier for longer, I'm still doing it now. Rather than trying to cut things out of your diet and flitting from one diet plan to another.

Not long after trying out this healthy eating, I came across quinoa it seems to be very up and come this year, even Nandos have a quinoa salad. It's a great source of protein and is loaded with antioxidants, along with lots of other health benefits.

Generally I just boil it and use it for a substitute for rice or couscous, with some salad and chicken or fish, or with some roasted veg. However there are lots of other ways you can incorporate quinoa into your diet. Like these quinoa patties:

What you need:

1 cup of uncooked quinoa
2 slices of toast
1/2 an onion
1 cup of peas
2 tablespoons of pesto - I went to red pesto as it's my favourite
1-2 eggs
1/4 cup of flour

First things first you'll need to cook the quinao. You'll need two cups of water for 1 cup of quinoa, bring this the boil and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the water has gone.

Pop your toasted slices of bread in a blender or processor and blend until they become bread crumbs.

Combine your cooked and cooled quinoa, chopped onions, peas, pesto and egg in a mixing bowl. Once the ingredients is mixed it's time to stir in the flour.

Now take a handful of the mixture, mould them into patties a little larger than your palm. Next place them onto a baking sheet. 

Once you've moulded all your patties pop them in the fridge for 30 minutes so they can dry out and firm up slightly. 

Add a little bit of oil to a pan and on a medium heat cook the patties. Once in the pan, lightly press the patties with a spatula. Cook them for around 2-3 minutes and then flip them over and again press on the other side with your spatula. Make sure you don't over flip them, you don't want them to fall apart, I suggest just flipping them once or twice.

And they're ready to eat!

G x