#27 on my list, Try 30 new dishes (#3)

WOW, even though I like to eat I feel really behind on this one for my list. My new food that I tried was a recipe that I got out of my book 'Gluten Free Girl'. It's Popped Amaranth Cereal. She writes about this grain in her chapter 'Going against the grain', the thing for people with celiacs disease is that we tend to not be able to get a lot of grains into our diet due to the fact that most of them are tainted through gluten infested bread, especially if you were like I used to be and you like the 12 grain breads and that kind stuff. These grains are important though since the lend a lot of fiber to a persons diet and we all know why we need fiber in our diet;) Well through this book I was able to find one, Amaranth, that should help out with that.

Really when I first saw the tiny little seeds I wasn't sure if I was buying the right thing when I was at the Co-Op last night. I thought that they would be more the size of flax seeds, trust me they're not! They're so tiny that upon looking at them a person would scoff at what these babys are capable of, I know I did. But I really wanted to try the cereal so I got just a little, I mean I don't want to waste money on something that I may not even like. But after making my mew cereal this morning I can safely say that is not the case. Not only were these hearty little seeds that fill you up pretty fast, but now my kitchen smells like popcorn! Now who can argue with something that great. The cook time in the book said that the seeds should take about 5 minutes before they turn brown, it was much less then that for me so I actually ended up burning some. I discarded those, but the rest were fine. Then I added some chopped pecans and brown sugar. GFG's recipe called for cinnamon and ground ginger which I'm sure is good to I just didn't have any, and I'm not a fan of putting dates in food unless they are ground in (I'm not big on the texture). Anyway the recipe (as I made it) is below for those of you who are intrigued to try something new.

Popped Amaranth Cereal

1/4c. Amaranth seeds (Tthese can be found in the bulk foods section of your super market)
1/2c. Warm milk ( I used more since I like my cereals with more milk in them)
1Tbsp Light brown sugar
2Tbsp Chopped pecans (I used more since I like nuts)

Over high heat, heat up a skillet until beads of water can dance accross it. Once the skillet is this hot put the seeds it. It does not take long for them to start popping so when this happens stir the seeds continually until they satrs to brown. If you start to smell burning popcorn take them off the stove immediately since you might have burned some (they're sill good, but it's not fun to taste burnt, and then eventually wet, popcorn).

Add the milk and extras to the cereal. If you don't want to heat the milk before cooking the cereal that's fine the seeds will stay hot in the bowl while you heat up the milk. I reccommend this way so that the milk doesn't get cold while you're cooking the seeds. Of course if your tast buds lean you to other things then by all means try it. Now Enjoy!

If you want to try GFG's way then add 1/2tsp. cinnamon, 1/2tsp. ground ginger, 1Tbsp organic cane sugar, and 1/4c. dates. The nuts and milk stay the same.