Covid came and brought a slew of wannabe chefs on Instagram. People who had not cooked even a day in their lives started posting atrocities such as noodle fritters, chocolate momo and the likes.

In my defense, I had cooked for not just a day, but for years before covid came. It is a different matter that the cooking was limited to a few items and perfectly made round rotis (their diameters were the multiples of 22/7 or pie so that we got whole numbers as the perimeter 🤓).

Cutting to the chase, I joined this bandwagon of trying new recipe and buying new ingredients whose names I could not pronounce. For example Worcestershire sauce and Qunioa. The former I tried to prepare from scratch with good results. 

The latter took some time though.

I had limited experience with cooking whole grains before (not counting daliya/broken wheat). I did not utilise my IIM-clearing brain that the grain need to be washed 3-4 times or till the times the dust gets removed completely.

Because no one wants their grains to cause the sound of “kit-kit” while eating. 

But then I would gave broken my series of unfortunate disasters in kitchen.

See, I did wash quinoa twice but did not care to check whether the dust was totally removed. I guess I was too excited to cook the superfood of the Incas and the Andeans!

So after washing (not-so-thorough), I decided to create a vegetable sautéed version of quinoa. I added some green chillies and onions to the hot oil in a pan, then broccoli and red bell pepper. After the broccoli became tender, I added quinoa and then water to cook it. 

I covered the lid and requested my mom to check whether the quinoa was boiled as I got busy with office work.

I had expected some nice comments from my Mom about experimenting a new dish and cooking things on my own. Instead I got the sarcastic feedback on “kit-kit texture”, “not washing quinoa properly”, “concentration on cooking”, “cooking requires blood, sweat and tears” and all that. Then my sister, like a cat smelling for blood jumped into the prowl and said, “Ewww, I am not going to eat it!”

As if my sister was eating this anyway! 🤣

I came to address the commotion in the kitchen and saw that the kernels had started coming out of the quinoa grains. I pinched a few grains and they were cooked. The broccoli and peppers were overcooked because you are supposed to boil the quinoa first and then add blanched vegetables later on. 

I plated the dish and took my pictures for my blog. It did taste kit-kit but after that, u have always washed quinoa to the “point of no return of dust!”