Once you step off the pool steps into the deep end, you find out just how deep that end is.

With couscous recipes, there's always the potential to rather add quinoa or millet or buckwheat or polenta. Where does it end? And if you are so inclined to jump into that kind of pool then you also need to learn how to cook each one.

I decided to have a hand at quinoa. I didn't follow the recipe to the T, so it may have been a little porridgyyy… note to self, and to Reader: follow the recipe to the T.

To cook quinoa, you need to rinse a cup of it through a sieve to clean off all the excess starch. So rinse it until the water is clear (If you don't have a sieve with ridiculously tiny holes, then do what I did. I didn't sieve it).

There are so many reasons to love this food choice, but its superpower is that it disguises itself as being a whole grain, when in fact it is actually a whole protein. Yup, all nine essential amino acids hanging out with the plant seeds.

After you've rinsed them, place them in a pot with two and a half cups of boiling water. Boil the quinoa for two minutes and then simmer it on a low heat for up to fifteen minutes until the water has all been absorbed. Pretty much exactly like how you make millet. And millet is cheaper, so stick to that if the quinoa prices cause your wallet to cry.

But here's the cool thing. Some cooks and recipe-makers add flavours for the quinoa to cook in with the boiling water. If you want something a little more zingy and flavourful, you can add lemon juice from a lemon, or some chilli/ dried chilli flakes. You can also add a tablespoon of soy sauce or tamari sauce or…. Be creative. How yum does that sound.

For my fearful young cheflings, and none-chefs, I would suggest that you stick to couscous for now, and add some freshly squeezed lemon juice and salt with the boiling water for your couscous to absorb.

You can fry up some courgettes, red peppers, and broccolini/ normal broccoli and mix that together with the couscous/ millet/ quinoa. And there you've got yourself a pretty decadent yet easy meal.

I also love me a pretty heavy-handed drizzle of tahini sauce, but if that's a bit too much of a cook for one day, give it a skip.