By now, most peo­ple have heard of quinoa, the super­food. With plen­ty of fiber, pro­tein and vit­a­mins it sounds like a super idea. The prob­lem aris­es when the time comes to actu­al­ly pre­pare this some­what unfa­mil­iar item and pos­es a spe­cial prob­lem dur­ing the upcom­ing hol­i­day of Passover. Jew­ish peo­ple tend to favor foods from their par­tic­u­lar part of the Dias­po­ra dur­ing these eight days. And real­ly, how many Jews are actu­al­ly from Bolivia? But nev­er fear, we Jews are a glo­ri­ous melt­ing pot! We may have been kicked out of many places but we wind up tak­ing the menus with us.

Quin-what?

I have recent­ly trav­eled around the coun­try to do cook­ing demon­stra­tions in response to my new book, The No-Pota­to Passover, and I have found that peo­ple have a fear and mis­trust of this sim­ple Boli­vian staple.

Quinoa (pro­nounced ​“keen-whah”) is often mis­tak­en for a grain, but it’s actu­al­ly a seed — one that orig­i­nat­ed thou­sands of years ago in the Andes Moun­tains. Dubbed ​“the gold of the Incas,” it’s trea­sured because of it’s nutri­tive val­ue. Quinoa actu­al­ly has more pro­tein than any oth­er grain or seed and offers a com­plete pro­tein, mean­ing it con­tains all the essen­tial amino acids our bod­ies can’t make on their own. It’s also a great source of cal­ci­um and is high in lysine, the B vit­a­mins and iron. To top it off, the seed is easy to digest and gluten free! If you are count­ing carbs or just want to eat health­i­er quinoa is your new best friend.

Ingre­di­ents:

• 1 cup red quinoa
• 1 cup sliv­ered almonds
• 1 cup white quinoa
• 5 – 6 medi­um mush­rooms, chopped
• 1 cup gold­en raisins
• 1 Vidalia onion, diced
• 1 cup Craisins
• 2 tbsp. canola oil
• salt and pep­per to taste

Direc­tions:

1. Cook quinoa accord­ing to pack­age.
2. In a sep­a­rate skil­let, sauté onions in canola oil until gold­en brown.
3. Add chopped mush­rooms and sauté for one minute.
4. Add raisins, craisins and almonds, and sauté for anoth­er minute.
5. When quinoa is ready, add to pan and mix with oth­er ingre­di­ents.
6. Add salt and pep­per to taste.

Recipe from The No Pota­to Passover (Brio Books; 2012 Hard­cov­er $29.95)

Avi­va Kanoff paints, teach­es a mixed media art class, and dab­bles in pho­tog­ra­phy. Her cre­ative approach to life led her to artis­tic exper­i­men­ta­tion with food, and after years of cre­at­ing her own recipes and work­ing as a per­son­al chef, she wrote The No-Pota­to Passover.