Kitchen Fail: Spicy Pumpkin Quinoa Cakes

You know how people who are hypnotized can fall back asleep instantly when the hypnotist snaps? Well, T is like that...all the time. Put him horizontal on a couch for more than four minutes, and it's usually lights out. And since he leaves for work by 4:45 each morning, he's usually passed out by 9:30 each night.

I'm more of a night owl, so it usually takes me a while to fall asleep. The new trick I've come up with to pass the time until I manage to pass out is to make a mental list of what I have in the fridge, and try to come up with interesting combinations to test out the next day.

Last night, I came up with [what I thought was] a real gem. I decided to combine some leftover quinoa and leftover pumpkin purée with some goat cheese, an egg, and a little cayenne pepper in order to make a savory breakfast "cake." I had tried some quinoa cakes from Whole Foods this summer and really liked them, and figured they couldn't be too hard to mimic.

I started with some parsley, because that felt like a good choice.

Next, I added a healthy scoop of goat cheese and about half a cup of pumpkin purée. I also added a sprinkle of cayenne because I've recently become addicted to spicy foods.

After stirring in the egg and the quinoa, I thought the mixture seemed a little too wet, but decided to go ahead and try it anyway instead of having to add flour to thicken it. Don't they look yummy?

Yeah, I thought they looked yummy, too. I was even starting to get a little cocky, thinking I had just made up a perfect recipe without having to do any research first. BUT THEN I decided to flip my first quinoa cake when it appeared to have browned enough, and it fell apart. The other one did the same thing. Classic.

Since I knew the flavors would still be good, I decided to just go ahead and cook the quinoa mess and have it for breakfast with an extra dollop of goat cheese on top. Goat cheese is an appropriate solution to any problem. It's science.

The quinoa scramble, as I've decided to call it, tasted gorgeous. Seriously. It just didn't look very appetizing. I've looked up a few recipes and have figured out that I just added too much pumpkin for the amount of quinoa I was including, and plan to try again with some of the billion sweet potatoes we have in the house soon. I'll be sure to post the (hopefully not so scrambled) results.