Revenge of the Manky Produce

My daughter and I refer to produce that is ... um ... past it's prime as manky.

I wondered if that was even a real word. Apparently it is. You can even get a wonderful English/Scottish explanation here.

Manky

Said daughter and I love to start off our weekend at the big Farmer's Market in Grand Army Plaza.

Such goodness.

The farmers are actually there all year, though pickings are a bit slim come winter.

But once the weather warms, it's produce heaven.

It's soooooo very tempting.

And way too often you find yourself buying way more produce than two people can possibly eat. (Yes, 2, because husband has zero interest unless it comes from the bakery table.)


And sometimes, well, maybe a few too many thumbs have pressed on those peaches to see if they're as ripe as they smell (they weren't).

So two days later, you find yourself with this -

After I cut out all the huge brown spots!

Now, despite their appearance (which isn't quite as good as the picture makes them appear), those strawberries still taste amazing, and I have a recipe to share about them in a week or two, but the peaches, they were ... just manky.


So, what to do????

There's always composting back at the greenmarket. :) 

But my frugal little heart balks at that waste of peaches.

So.....

QUINOA!!!!!!

I've been pondering quinoa as a breakfast food because of the health benefits - especially protein - so I decided to cook some up with my manky fruit.

My main beef with quinoa is that it doesn't have much flavor. Maybe fruit will help?

I soaked the quinoa because that is supposed to remove the bitterness. That did leave me with a bit of a dilemma because the ratio of water to dry quinoa is 2 to 1, but after soaking, the quinoa had doubled in size. I went with the original measure of water since the fruit has plenty of juice.

I sliced the manky peaches into the boiling water/quinoa and simmered for 6 minutes (half the cooking time). Then I added the strawberries and some blueberries (because my daughter thought this would be a patriotic looking breakfast).

So here we go.

Just the quinoa and peaches.

Is this where I mention how tempted I was to add in chocolate chips here??? RESIST!

In hindsight, I should have stopped at the cooked quinoa and peaches and added in the blueberries and strawberries fresh.

Although it tastes delicious, the final cooked version looks a little ... well, not exactly manky, but definitely mushy.  Which is fine for breakfast. Or dessert.

It tastes better than it looks.

I realize this doesn't exactly sound like a rallying call to get everyone to make it, but it beats the compost bin and it really does make for an excellent breakfast. I'm going to put it in the frig for morning!

Looks like mush but has a bit of a crunch thanks to the quinoa.

  #Success

So did I scare you off or intrigue you?


Just so long as I didn't bore you, right? Because readers may love us or hate us, but we sure don't want them to ignore us!!!!