Cibo e Famiglia (Food and Family): The Mother Grain? Incas?

Lately, when I head into my local food market, my eye wanders to any fruit or vegtable that looks different. I can't wait to take it home, look it up on the internet and figure out how I will use it in a recipe. This past week had me buying Kohlrabe - WHAT? Doesn't it look alien? I also picked up a couple of small purple and white eggplants.

As I might have mentioned in the past, normally, we are a family that eats lots and lots of all things Italian and while I would never move away from that, I continue my quest to walk a little on the wild and strange healthy side. I should say that growing up with my Grandfather in the house we never had a lot of meat. It was pasta, soup, polenta, soup, more pasta along with plenty of cheese.

I am also looking to add more healthy grains so I headed to that aisle to see what I could see. This week I picked up Organic Quinoa. Again - WHAT? (keen-wa) is a whole grain that was a staple of the ancient Incas and means "the mother grain".

It's actually quite cute once it's cooked as a light and fluffy texture. I took my vegtables and sauted them in EVOO with salt and pepper. When almost ready, I added some roasted garlic and then the Quinoa with a couple of shots of soy sauce.