Quinoa

I made a very delicious dish from Quinoa today. Then I went out to the garden and found a few flowers for a boquet.  I set them uip and took a shot for the Still Life with flowers community on Megashot.  It also works in the Food and Drink community. 
We have had two very hot days and are due for a few more before it cools off again.  There are not many flowers in the garden.  I watered a lot last nite at the front and the night before at the back.  It is already looking dry again.  Hopefully some of the little transplants will survive.  
I have added custom channels to my Google Adsense and put them on my communities .  Whimsies, Flares and Echoes, and Playtime.  The honest fox has just an URL channel with the same ad unit code that is on this blog.  I will do one for the community In the Garden tomorrow, perhaps.

How to cook Quinoa: 
 1. For every one cup of quinoa, bring two cups of water to a boil (just like rice). If you prefer a more al dente texture, then use just 1.5 cups of water.
       2. Cover when boiling and reduce to a simmer. Cook for 12-15 minutes, or until the germ separates from the seed. The cooked germ looks like a tiny curl (see photograph above comparing cooked quinoa (right side) to uncooked quinoa (left side)).
       3. Let stand for about 3 minutes to become fully fluffy.

In the food processor I finely chopped a half a bell pepper, a half a big onion, a celery stick and pan fried them lightly in butter.  I added this and a tomato processed in the machine, as well as about a quarter teaspoon of mild curry powder, to the quinoa.  We had about one third of this mix with our dinner. It is delicious.  I have some frozen for a quick addition to a meal some time and have another third of the mix to have another night soon for our dinner. 

It was so very hot today.  My computer temperature got up to 43 degrees celcius, so I shut it down.  It was about 33 degrees outside.   There is a forest fire on the Island but they seem to have it under control.  They are, of course, worried about more fires as everything is very very dry. 

There is a boat load of about 500 people who have been 'escorted' into the Esquimalt harbor.  These people are Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.  The authorities will be holding them all until they are processed  as to health issues, political issues and whatever else they need to do.  The authorities are looking for the people smugglers and terrorists.  This is not the first boat load of these people we have had, and it probably will not be the last.  Canada is a big country and we have lots of space.  But how can we be expected to support all the world's over grown populations without destroying this country?  The world  needs our forests and our agricultural land.  We do not need more breeders.  But this is the way the world is going to go into a slow decline. It has started already.  Wait until we begin to see the water wars!  I hope to be long gone before it gets to that point.