Instead of money she's got yams and cabbages

[venta]

Just when you thought I'd desisted from telling you about my lunch...

Today was my first experiment with quinoa, which I'm going to continue mispronouncing as kwin-o-a because the alternative just sounds too ridiculous for words.

Last night, I made a half-batch of Bento Lady's Quinoa with Green Peas and Dried Sausage, using garlic and herb chorizo from The Bath Pig and frozen shelled soy beans (because I don't really like peas all that much). And I turned out not to have any mustard seeds in the cupboard, so dolloped in a big spoonful of wholegrain mustard instead.

But other than that I stuck pretty faithfully to the recipe, and packed it up for lunch with the other half of my bento box full of blanched kale, Chinese cabbage and spinach with sundried tomatoes.

No picture, I'm afraid, because I'd eaten it before I thought of writing about it. Also it wasn't terribly photogenic, because the soy beans don't keep their colour as well as garden peas would, so it looked a bit old and tired.

It was very tasty, though. Quinoa doesn't have a terribly strong taste, but it does have a pleasant texture - although, once cooked, it looks very slightly as if it's in the process of hatching. It's simple and fairly quick to cook, so I think it might well feature in my life considerably more than it has done to date. Mind you, since I have an entire packet-minus-one-half-cup left in the cupboard, it's going to have to.

If cooking for the first time, be warned: it's surprisingly dense. My lunch portion today was sizeable, but was only made from about a quarter cup of the dried stuff.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

No, I can only think of words that end -gua. However, my Spanish vocabulary is likely to be considerably more limited than yours, since I think you actually speak some :)

It was more that I'm aware of things like Antigua and Quechua, but most of the words I can think of which end -oa are pronounced -o-a (like Goa and Genoa, and boa). Whereas they're not exactly stereotypical English words, they are familiar words and they've fostered the impression that -oa is a two-syllable noise rather than the more one-syllable noise that ends quinoa. I can't think of having ever encountered any other -oa word that has the quinoa pronounciation, though if my knowledge of Spanish were better perhaps I'd know lots.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

However, my Spanish vocabulary is likely to be considerably more limited than yours, since I think you actually speak some :)

Well, as my family, coworkers and most of my friends like to mock me for, I *did* only get a B at A-level, even *with* the resit of the AS speaking exam. ;-).

they've fostered the impression that -oa is a two-syllable noise

Yes and no. Yes, oa is notionally two syllables and ua is a dipthong and is one syllable (which, incidentally, is why you need the accent for quínoa but not quínua). But the o is pronounced much shorter than in English, so oa sounds a lot less like two syllables as typically spoken by a Spanish speaker than it would in English.

though if my knowledge of Spanish were better perhaps I'd know lots.
Er. Dunno. An awful lot of what goes on in post A-level conversation classes (and for that matter, during A-level) tended to focus a lot less on learning lots of words and a lot more on culture, literature, politics* and the like.

*Neocolonialism, cultural imperialism and the problems it causes for los pueblos indígenas** (e.g. biopiracy) are common themes of discussion. Oh, and Evo Morales' sweaters.

**Apologies for the switch in language, it doesn't translate exactly.