Moroccan Quinoa in Cucumber Boats

Preparing for a Moroccan Tapas Night that we hosted at church, I googled something like Moroccan finger food and this recipe immediately caught my eye.   I'm glad it did ... it was delicious!  There are no real measurements on her page so I imagine it's a pretty forgiving recipe.  I did mine pretty much like hers but I couldn't find the Sambhar curry powder she calls for so I made substitutions.  Here's what I did.  You can adjust each element to taste.  I'm not kidding, I tasted after each ingredient I added! Also, I cooked this for 100 people to have one each.  When I make it again, I'll probably 1/2 the amount of filling and just eat whatever is leftover.  This amount filled four long continental cucumbers.

I used ...

4 big continental cucumbers
1 cup quinoa (I used a tri-colored one)
3 cups water
2 preserved lemons
4 or 5 sun dried tomatoes
2 spring onions
1 small jalapeno that I picked out of my garden
a small handful of fresh mint
1/4 of a bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro)
handful of pine nuts
olive oil
sea salt
moroccan seasoning
cumin, ground

What I did ...

Cook quinoa.  I did it according to the package instructions which said one part quinoa to three parts water.  Bring to the boil, cover and cook until water is gone.  It took about 20 minutes.

In the meantime ... finely dice the preserved lemons and sun dried tomatoes.  Chop the spring onions small.  Get rid of the seeds and membrane in the jalapeno and finely dice it.  Chop herbs.

After quinoa is finished and has cooled a little bit,  add all of the above that you've just chopped/diced to it.  Drizzle with olive oil and then season with sea salt, moroccan seasoning and cumin.  (or the Sambhar curry powder if you can get it.  I'd love to try that as it is cinnamon based and I think it would really change the flavor .... ) Season to taste ....

For the cucumber boats ... peel down the outside of the cucumber (as you see in photo above) in long strips.  Cut into 3/4 inch 'slices'.  Scoop out the centre with a melon baller and then fill the hole with quinoa mixture.