Bacon Fried Quinoa with Extra Bacon

Bacon Fried Quinoa with Extra Bacon

1 ½ cups of quinoa – give or take a cup or so
6 to 50 slices of bacon – depending on what you have on hand. (I am kidding about that much bacon. If this is the main dish, than whatever amount of bacon your family will eat. If this is not the main dish, then you don't really need any extra bacon. 4 to 6 slices will do nicely.)
2 - 4 eggs, depending on how well you like eggs


First, cut up about 4 to 6 slices of bacon and brown cook them fairly crisp in the skillet. Fling in few green onions if you have them on hand. If you like the flavor of canned green chiles or a favorite picante sauce, then adding a little of that is good as well. You can add extras to the bacon while it is cooking, or add it at the end when you put everything back into the skillet. If you are adding a raw veggie, you better put it in with the bacon so it can cook.

When they are done, remove from skillet and cook the rest of the bacon to however crisp you happen to like it. Remove the bacon from the skillet. Reserve enough bacon grease to grease the clean skillet if you want to and drain the rest onto you pan of dog food. (Dogs love bacon grease.) If you don’t save a little bacon grease, then you will have to use something else like coconut oil or olive oil
when you fry the quinoa.

While the bacon is frying, crack the eggs into a bowl and beat them slightly with a fork.

If your skillet is bad to stick, you need to either clean the skillet or get another skillet that is already clean. That sort of depends on who is doing the dishes that night.

Heat your greased skillet to fairly hot and add your cooked quinoa. (I used a cup and a half for this recipe, but you can add more or less, depending on how much you have or how many people are going to be eating the finished dish.) Flip the quinoa around in the skillet until is thoroughly hot and starting to brown. Stir in your bacon crisps. Then drizzle your eggs into the skillet. If you are trying to disguise the eggs for kids that don’t really like eggs, then drizzle them in in very small drizzles. If your family likes eggs, then drizzle them in thick drizzles. Or, just dump them in and stir until they are done.

Put in a plate and surround with the extra bacon.

Now, here are some variations.

First, I like to add green peas to my fried quinoa, but there were no peas in the pantry, and somehow I didn’t think the garbanzo beans would really add much to the dish. If you like peas, or peas and carrots, they look nice in the dish and taste good as well. If you don’t like them, or your family won’t eat them, then don’t waste your money trying to make the dish look better. A few shredded fresh carrots are good to add, and they look pretty as well. I have heard the eye eats before the stomach, but that is only true when are not really hungry and take time to look at the food before you eat it. If a bunch of hungry people sit down at the table at the same time, you have to get your food as fast as good manners will allow, and worry about how it looks later.

This dish was made as a fill in for a meal of leftovers. I could have made more and made a meal of it.
Actually, we had tacos last night, so this will be a filler in case there isn’t enough taco meat to make everyone happy. It makes a nice burrito all by itself. Any bacon fried quinoa leftovers would make someone a nice lunch the next day.

Consider what your family likes and what your budget and time allows. Adapt the dish to suit you. There is a rumor that bacon is not the most nutritious meat available, but I don’t think that has ever been proven.

In the interests of good health, I did not add any salt to this meal, as the quinoa was cooked in chicken stock - so it was already salted. The bacon is salted, and I estimated that would be enough salt.

If you were here, I would invite you to stay for supper.