quinoa etc - fancy baby porridge - can you make it yourself?

[horseymum]

We love all sorts of grains to eat ourselves and i just saw a fancy baby breakfast cereal in boots that had four grains - quinoa was one of them. It was £2 at least for a small bag so was wondering, can you just grind up ordinary quinoa yourself. The thing is, on the packet, you just added warm milk to the mix, whereas quinoa takes 15 minutes to cook, Anyone know if it is ground, you can just do it like oats. I just grind oats in a coffee grinder and heat in microwave, it is not really cooked but you can eat oats raw. Thanks.

Why would you grind it - you can soak it overnight in milk or fruit juice and then nuke it for two minutes. Tis quite nice with blueberries in.

Do you eat lots of grains because you are a horse though?

ok, there is a saying that in England what is fed to horses, in Scotland is fed to the people!!! My horse would love to have oats, she would go mental! Anyway, was that soaking quinoa or oats in fruit juice, either sounds nice, was unsure whether you could eat basically rawquinoa.

It's best not to eat it raw, its indigestible because of the husk. But soaking it is a great way to go.

Apparently the french think the english weird because we eat parsnips which are 'only fit for ze 'orses. '

When I do quinoa instead of porridge for breakfast I just rinse it, add water, bring to boil, simmer and then when it's done I add whatever is on the menu that day (fruit, honey, cream, jam etc.

Never ground it, but I don't grind porridge oats either, so perhaps I've misunderstood the question.

I've never ground oats either, if you want ground buy oatmeal

didn't realise that soaking would make the husk more digestable, that clears it up for me. The only reaon i ground the oats was i buy tesco value oats, much cheaper than oatmeal and dd only just 6 months so was finding lumpy porridge a bit hard going!

How do you cook it? Try microwaving and do it for long enough for the grains to be dissolved - it helps if you use full fat milk. OR use a bigger bowl and use a hand blender afterwards, that is a lot quicker than milling it in a coffee grinder.

oh, and RINSE the quinoa first. RINSE AND RINSE it. i love it, we eat it in place of rice in this house.

I've been giving DD quinoa porridge but can't seem to get the consistency right - somehow it doesn't absorb the liquid like other stuff (well, oats) - am I doing something wrong?

It's meant to be packed with iron so I've also started giving her quinoa and rice pasta, which she loves...

Hi - you can by quinoa flakes from the healthfood store which is flattened grains and quicker to cook/soften.
Also - electric hand blenders are fab for blending all manner of things incl. babies first porridges/stews/banana&mango etc...

which healthfood store do you get the flakes from? i haven't seen them around...

We're lucky enough to have a couple of places near us that do wholefoods - haven't tried the chains (Holland&Barrett - are they mainly supplements etc?) - sorry can't be of more use.
Internet?

So is just rinsing it OK before boiling? (as opposed to soaking it for, say, 15 minutes).