trout and red quinoa

I started reading Gluten free girl's blog a couple of years ago. Through her site I discovered new ways to eat without my beloved bread and pasta. I later picked up her book Gluten Free Girl and began to make her yummy roasted chicken with a whole head of garlic and rosemary (well let's be serious I only made it about 3 times, have you read my previous post? J keeps asking for it though). Her new cookbook Gluten Free Girl and the Chef is a continuation of the first but with more recipes and glossy pages. The food ideas are more unique and the combinations are interesting which can be attributed to her husband, the chef. He contributes to the book but is not the primary voice although his influence is felt through out. I love the way they weave recipes and stories together. I want to make everything in it (a first for me) and it has moved from the bookshelf into the kitchen permanently. The only other book that gets that distinction is Molly Wizenberg's A Homemade Life.

My first try was the trout with almonds, grapes, quinoa, and kale with a lemon-marjoram vinaigrette. I know it's a (delicious) mouthful but I think it was definitely worth it. The first thing I learned was the value of mise en place (fancy word for prep), something I never do. I prefer to jump straight into a recipe instead of doing any prep work but with recipes that are more complex and require a multitude of things to do mise en place is definitely a must. At first it was easy because it was just pan frying the fish and as each element got added I became a bit of a spazzy mess. Goodness gracious there were so many pans that needed to be used! I once told a friend that mistakes make things look homemade. Let's just say this recipe was very homemade and looked a little too rustic. But it still came out and was delicious.

Shauna asks the reader to follow the recipe exactly the first time and then alter as you see fit but I was never one to follow the rules and did my own swaps (switching in cilantro for marjoram). I find that herbs while delicious rarely get all used up so I'm hard pressed to keep buying new ones especially if there is no alternate use recipe for it.

I'm going to be honest quinoa is not my favourite. When I did a gluten detox I tried quinoa flakes. The texture and the smell was less than appetizing and reminds me of something pretty gross. My friends LFB and VT know exactly what I'm talking about. I won't tell you what it is for fear of you never eating quinoa again (just know it's a healthy little grain and that's all). So when the recipe asked for red quinoa I had to pause and think, but my faith in Shauna convinced me to try it. And it was good! There was a lot of things going on with this recipe but the flavours complimented instead of competed. A+...I guess I'm grading things now.