Moroccan Beef Stew with Quinoa

This next dish was inspired once again from one of my cookbooks - Quinoa 365. As usual, I take the main concept from the recipes from other cooks and I find a way to make it my own. Sometimes I add or omit an ingredient or I used a different method to achieve the same outcome. In this instant I have done both. The original recipe called for me to use a Tagine. Unfortunately, I don't own one of this wonderful cooking vessels. To achieve the same outcome I made the stew in a slow cooker. I love slow cookers! They are life savers. Also, the original recipe says to toast the almonds but I put them in directly with the quinoa. OK, enough exposition on to my take on on the Moroccan Beef Stew with Quinoa.

MOROCCAN BEEF STEW WITH QUINOA

2 lbs stewing beef
2 cups of tomato juice
3 large sweet potatoes, diced
1 onion, diced
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp paprika
1 cinnamon stick
salt
pepper
1 cup of quinoa
2 cups of water
1 tsp garlic & onion powder combined
salt
pepper
1 tbsp canola oil
1/4 cup sliced almonds

1. Place all the ingredients for the stew in the slower cooker: stewing beef, sweet potatoes, onion, tomato juice and seasoning. Set the cooking timer to which ever setting you like. I set it for 8 hours.

2. In a medium size pot prepare the quinoa. For best results do this just before you are going to serve the stew.

3. Add the quinoa, water, oil, seasoning and almonds into the pot. Bring to a boil. Once the water starts bubbling lower the heat to low-medium. Let cook for 15 minutes with the lid closed. After 15 minutes fluff up with a fork.

To serve, put a good helping of quinoa on the bottom of a deep dish and the spoon on top the stew. If you have some nan it's even better to help you scoop up the juices.