13 Aug Lemon-Ginger Quinoa Pudding with Plum Conserve // Eff the Oven August

Oh haaaaay. Look at me going all ‘ancient super food’ on y’all for the second time this month.

Not that this quinoa pudding is health food, per se. It still calls for refined sugar (because, do you know me?), but it’s got lots of protein and fiber and stuff. And after Friday’s cream-laden, is-this-crack-?, bff-with-yo-love-handles Double Chocolate No-Bake Cakes, I thought I’d hit you with something a little lighter. You know, so we stay friends.

This Lemon-Ginger Quinoa Pudding is adapted from my new favorite cookbook, Bakeless Sweets by Faith Durand. You may know Faith from a little site called The Kitchn. This book is my new oven-hating self’s best friend. It’s exploding with millions of amazing no-bake recipes, from pudding to panna cotta to pie to ice box cakes and so on and so forth. I like to think that this month, Faith and I, we’re effing the oven together with book as our guide.

Yep, went there.

When I made this quinoa pudding, I was feeling more ginger, less coconut (I know, I don’t even recognize myself) so I used Faith’s ratios and methodology to create a pudding baby from two of my favorite whole grain pudding recipes in the book. Gingered Brown Rice Pudding + Lemon-Coconut Quinoa Pudding = this.

The original recipes call for whole milk and cream, but to make this digestible by my lactose-intolerant man friend, I substituted almond and coconut milks for the dairy. Then, since I felt the need to compensate for any lost creaminess I doubled the egg yolks (which is completely optional) and bonus –> no cream = less calories. High five!

The Plum Conserve is also from le book, and I made zero adaptions or substitutions there because, hot damn it’s delicious. Word of advice, don’t leave out the rum.

As a side note, plums may be my new color inspiration. Just look at the beautiful ombré shading on those guys!!!

It’s like a sunset.

In a fruit.

Is your mind blown yet?

But for real, who knows why (not me), but plums aren’t getting the spotlight they deserve.  It seems to me that they tend get overshadowed by the more popular of summer’s bounty of fruit. Stuck at the back of the chorus line, out of the spotlight, a little more commonplace than the rest. Maybe because they have a longer season, maybe because when eaten fresh they don’t have the same ripe, sunshiney sweetness as the competition.

Add a little heat and a pinch of sugar and plums come alive, becoming dare I say, the prettiest of all summer fruits. So really, if you do nothing else, make this plum conserve and pour it over some vanilla ice cream. The only regret you’ll have is not having stocked up on plums earlier in the season.

A few notes about this recipe:

The recipe below makes six 3 oz. servings but it can easily be halved to feed two dessert loving people or doubled to feed a crowd. 

The original recipe calls for 2 cups milk & 1 cup cream instead of almond milk and coconut milk respectively. If you’ve got dairy on hand feel free to use that instead — you could even go with 3 cups of milk and still get great results. 

Since I used almond & coconut milks in my recipe, I doubled the egg yolks so my pudding would be extra thick and creamy (that would be 4 egg yolks for the recipe below). The original recipe only calls for two — extra yolks are optional. 

While I’m all about plums, the conserve could be made with any other summer fruit — use what you have available!

Keep on keepin’ cool! XO, Katie

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