Culinary Experiments: Quinoa blah

This weekend, I made quinoa!
Quinoa is a grain, typically found in South America.  It is nick-named the little rice of Peru.  Cute, right?
Yeah... Don't get too excited... it really wasn't as good as I was expecting.  Part of this problem, I am sure, is that I prepared it as a main dish... with nothing else.  I don't know why I did something like that.  I guess I was just expecting it to taste similar to rice, which I make as a main dish all the time.  But it did not.  It did not taste like the rice I am used to at all. 
Now, that being said, it really wasn't too bad.  As a side dish, it would be fantastic.  Or as a dish with other flavours, it would be delicious.  Hind sight it 20/20 I guess.  I plan on trying another quinoa recipe (although this time I won't make the Ginge try it) this week.  This time, it will have plenty of other rockin' flavours to blend with.  I'll make sure I post that.  For now, this is how I prepared the failed quinoa recipe of Saturday:

Ingredients, assemble!  Water, quinoa, and salt.

1 cup quinoa

Soak for five minutes in water, stirring it up a bit at the end of the five minutes with your hand.  Pour off remaining water.  This should prevent the quinoa from tasting bitter once cooked.

Add 1 1/2 cups water and about half a teaspoon salt (or a little more if you like your grains salty, as the Ginge and I do.)  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer, and cook (covered) for 15 minutes.  Let stand 5 minutes, and fluff with a fork and serve!

Viola.

 

 

 

Like I said, I'll be anxious to try another quinoa recipe.  I feel like lack of planning on my part has lead to a rather biased opinion of an underrated grain.
What's your favourite grain?  Do you have a recipe in particular that you like?  How do you feel about quinoa?  What recipes have you failed epically to make?