Recipe Details
Recipe Keywords
Ingredients (yields Serves 4 -6 servings)
- 1 cup quinoa
- 2 cups water
- 4 cups fresh baby spinach
- 2 chopped carrots
- 1 chopped yellow bell pepper
- 1 cup halved grape tomatoes
- 1 cup chopped broccoli floret
- handful of chopped radish
- 1 chopped cucumber
- 1 minced garlic clove
- 1 beet
- 3/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
- 1 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon stone ground dijon mustard
- salt
- fresh ground black pepper
Cooking Instructions
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Public Comments (1)
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Robin_Horrigan
June 6th, 2010
If you haven't tried quinoa yet, add it to your list. It is a whole grain, much more readily available now than it was even a few years ago, probably sold with the rice and barley in stores that carry it. We kind of think of it as a cross between cous cous and barley - it tastes more like barley with the consistency of cous cous, and therefore lends itself to lots of great uses.
Use this recipe as more of a guide than an absolute. Cook the quinoa according to package directions. If you use the recipe instructions to cook the grains (covered and over high heat for twenty minutes) your result will be a burned mess.
Mix the cooked quinoa with as many colorful and crunchy raw or blanched veggies as you like. If you toss the quinoa with the spinach while it is still hot, you'll get the very nice wilted effect. It's a great idea for a new CSA shareholder like me, who is all of a sudden buried in scads of vegetables I might not buy altogether in one week.
The instructions are somewhat elaborate as to how you should arrange the salad, but there is no need to stress about this. You can make it as artful and composed as you like, or do what I did: toss the hot quinoa together with the spinach and some roughly chopped dill, and then add in the vegetables all mixed together. Toss with the vinaigrette. It looked lovely.
Raw pumpkin seeds are not something I see often in my travels, but this is a nice element in the salad, so I think you can improvise with toasted pine nuts or almonds for a similar effect. I also added a quarter of a red onion I had leftover in the fridge. Sub asparagus for the broccoli or increase the quantity of radishes if you have some to use up. Try a red or green pepper in place of the cucumber, or skip the beets if you don't care for them.
There is no reason why this dish can't be a meal in itself, and I would definitely make it for girlfriends for lunch. However, serving it as dinner would absolutely not fly in my house, so tonight we had it with grilled mahi mahi skewers and that seemed to do the trick. I think it would be a great side dish to bring to a summer party.