Healthy dessert - warning, do not attempt to make this at home!

Ingredients
1 cup quinoa
1 cup blueberries
1 ½ cups milk
¼ cup raw cane sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cinnamon stick
juice from ½ lemon

Had she posted it but two days earlier, this delicious raspberry chocolate cake from lovely blog Green Thyme is what the Santoku master would have gotten as his birthday dessert. Instead, with tears of regret and shame in my eyes, I am admitting what he actually got.

Somehow, I have been entertaining the idea that food can be healthy and delicious at the same time. Years of enjoying salads and veggie dishes, cooking with fresh herbs and whole grain pasta while reading about the health benefits of red wine confirmed this idea. Now, to my utter astonishment, have I had to find out that this does not hold true for desserts. If you believe me already at this point, read no further and go put all the cream, butter and sugar in your enjoyable delights. If not, read on to face the sad, the brutal reality.

So in my naivete, I thought I could come up with a healthy dessert for my Santoku master. The inspiration I had was to make some kind of a pudding with blueberries (alright, blueberries ARE delicious and healthy!), quinoa (the epitome o healthy) and just a tiny little bit of sugar (unfortunately not healthy).

The recipe is hellishly easy - I just simmered all the ingredients in a pot for around 45 minutes (that’s how long it took for the quinoa to develop its tender nuttiness - and believe me, that is a flavor not appreciated in a sweet treat!). The darkish mass that resulted from said procedure was poured into glasses and refrigerated for a couple of hours in the innocent hope that it would magically transforms its consistency into pudding. It did not, and has not gotten any better until the day we finally threw it in the trash.



And to make this life lesson even more bitter, I had to observe the transformation in my Santoku master from giddy excitement, eyes glittering with anticipation for his birthday treat, to surprise and hesitation, a glance of trust that I would never give him something detestable, to the devastating realization that in fact, I just had. The look of betrayal broke my heart, and at the next chance, I will try to rehabilitate my reputation by making the raspberry chocolate cake. And never, ever again a 'healthy' dessert.

Life is good!