Garlic and Thyme Quinoa Patties

Today's recipe came from a new food blog I recently came across: Cook Republic. I have only recently discovered quinoa, and am happy to find another way to incorporate it into a dish. This really would be better as a party appetizer or side dish, but I used it as a full meal this time. 

We liked these patties a lot, but next time I am going to make some sort of dipping sauce to go along with them. More on that later...

Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/2 cups of cooked quinoa
• 5 eggs
• 1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
• 1/4 cup of green onions, finely chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 1/2 yellow onion, finely chopped
• 1 Tbsp of fresh thyme, finely chopped
• 1 tsp of paprika
• salt
• olive oil

I started by pre-cooking my quinoa earlier in the day. I just followed the directions on the box, using my rice cooker to do all the work. (Two parts water, to one part dry quinoa.) You can easily do it on the stove, too. 

When it finished, I put it in the fridge until I was ready to make dinner.

At dinner time, I measured out about 2 1/2 cups of cooked quinoa.

And put it into a bowl along with 5 eggs...

Added 1/2 cup of freshly grated parmesan...

Added 1/2 cup of plain breadcrumbs...

Added 1/4 cup of chopped green onion (original recipe called for chives, but the two grocery stores I went to today didn't have any in stock)...

And 1/2 of a yellow onion...

Added about a tablespoon of chopped fresh thyme...

And, finally, added about a teaspoon of paprika.

Then, I used a wooden spoon to mix it all together. 

Pre-heated some olive oil into a flat pan...

Formed the mixture into small patties a couple images in diameter.
(I later used my cookie dough scoop, as I realized that was easier than getting my hands all yucky.)

 

I then set the patties into the pan to lightly fry in the oil.

I try to make sure to wear an apron when cooking things on the stove with oil, since it can splatter a lot. 

This time, I snagged John's Michigan grilling apron, since my usual one was in the wash.

Here they are after a couple were flipped. It only takes a couple minutes to cook on each side. 

Yum!

The finished patties quickly piled up!

Oooh la la!

They turned out pretty good, but as I expected, John was hoping for some sort of sauce to go along with them. Next time, I will whip up something to dip them into. But for now, John raided the fridge for his favorite sauces to test out.

This is probably his favorite sauce of all time - despite the immediate pain it puts on his mouth and sweat that beads on his forehead! :)

Instead of dipping, he spread each sauce on top to sample. This was a LOT for that spicy Mango Habanero!

He does not go lightly with the Sriracha either!

The Red Hot Sweet Chili sauce ended up being our favorite!