Retro Roasted Vegs with Quinoa

If you have an idea of what I will be talking about in a few seconds, it might be the case that you are old, or at least a bit older. Hm … let me think about it for a while … that would mean then that I am old, or at least a bit older.

Anyway, I used to play computer games. One of my first computers was a Commodore C64. Just while cooking in the kitchen, one of those computer games came to my mind: Aztec Challenge. These days it is possible to play these old games online (I checked it). You can play this game here at the Vizzed Retro Game Room. There you find also a description of the game: “The player must reach and explore an Aztec temple while avoiding a variety of dangerous obstacles. Each level is like a whole different game, with different challenges and different types of scrolling and exploration. The game starts with an over-the-shoulder view of the player running a gauntlet of spear-throwing natives towards a pyramid which rises on the horizon. Once this is reached, a vertically-scrolling staircase with falling rocks must be traversed, and then there are rooms to explore and deadly aquatic wildlife to avoid (among other dangers) before the game is through. Players looking for the adventuring equivalent of an Epyx sports game should enjoy this one.”

I never quite managed the first part, or at least I can’t remember it.

Now, as you may guess, this has only little to do with what we are cooking. The Aztec people dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14^th to the 16^th century. You may have heard as well about Tenochtitlan, which was located were you find today Mexico City.

However, today we like to go a bit further to the south, though, at about the same time, to the Inca people. Their capital was the city of Cusco, which is located in modern-day Peru. Interesting is also the Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, which is an UNESCO World Heritage Site and it would be definitely on my list, should I ever get to Peru.

Before I go on and continue with endless historic and archaeological explanations I want to talk a bit about “Quinoa”. Quinoa has a low sugar and starch content, it is rich in protein, about 50% more than wheat or rice. It furthermore contains essential amino acids like lysine. To cut an already too long story short: experts call quinoa the ideal food product.

Good that I have some of it in my storage. What can we do with it? We can have it either as a warm dish or like a salad. Let’s call it then Retro Roasted Vegs with Quinoa.

Ingredients:

400 g quinoa

1,2 l water

One yellow, red, green bell pepper respectively

Assortment of various tomatoes (about 500 g)

One red onion

Olive oil, salt ,pepper

A few sprigs of rosemary

200 g goat’s cheese

Method:

Wash the quinoa with hot water. Then add it to boiling water, simmer for 20 minutes and leave it to set for 5 minutes.

Have a nice baking tray. Well, it doesn’t have to be nice necessarily, but you don’t want to use a nasty one either. Cut the tomatoes, bell peppers and onion to random sized chunks, that still would fit into the mouth of the expected eaters. Throw all the chunks into your baking tray, season with salt an pepper, sprinkle with olive and add the rosemary as whole sprigs. You could have also some chillies or garlic in if you like, but I liked to exclude them this time. Put the tray to the oven at 180°C for 30-40 minutes.

Meanwhile you could check out one of this retro C64 games, I mentioned above, maybe you manage the first level of Aztec Challenge.

After roasting, remove the rosemary. Now you could mix the roasted vegetables with the quinoa or serve the vegetables on top of the quinoa. Or you let everything cool down and eat it later.

For serving, of course, arrange it on a plate and crumble some goat’s cheese over it.

Use whatever tool you like to eat it.