Quinoa Salad

My blog seems to have become an impromptu recipe book. The simple fact is that I have been cooking more lately, and I get most of my recipes off the web. I have a lot of cookbooks, but it's so much faster to type "-insert name of dish I want to cook here- recipe" into google, and then go through the available options. I can go through 20 recipes in a few minutes, scanning to see which ones have ingredients that are in my kitchen, and which ones I can adapt to fit what I have. You see, I'm currently very very broke. I'm waiting for a financial aid check to come and rescue me from my lack of funds, but until then, I'm having to be creative with the food I already have.

Although I hate not having money, being forced to cook is kind of enjoyable. I have all sorts of dried goods in my pantry that have been waiting for me to take advantage of them. Yesterday, I made a delicious quinoa salad that took advantage of the meager fresh vegetables I still have. Because quinoa is a complete protien, I didn't have to worry about the fact that I can't afford animal products right now.

Looking online, I discovered that the trick to good quinoa is to soak it for 5 minutes and rinse it before cooking. This removes bitter tasting saponins (which can apparently be used as soap, which may come in handy if you're ever stuck in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no soap but lots of quinoa). My box of quinoa said that I should use 2 cups of water for 1 cup of dry quinoa, but recipes online indicated that after you soak, you should use 1 1/2 cups of water. They were right. I used 1 1/2 cups, and it was perfect.

So here's the recipe I used. Obviously, you can use all sorts of different veggies, nuts, and dried fruits. This isn't the sort of recipe that you go out and buy ingredients for - it's the sort of recipe you throw whatever you have into.

Susie's Odds and Ends Quinoa Salad

Cook up 1 cup of quinoa after soaking and rinsing.
Once it's cooked, let chill in the refrigerator, or if you don't feel like waiting, you can eat it warm.

Sautee onions - I used three small spring Walla Walla sweet onions
chop up some scallions (I used 2)
thinly slice carrots - I used 1 1/2 small carrots, and I shredded the remaining half

You can, of course, prepare any other veggies you have. You can use them raw or sauteed or steamed, depending on what you have and what you feel like. I think bell peppers, cucumber, zucchini, kale, and even broccoli would be delicious additions.

Mix the veggies into the quinoa

Add a handful of dried fruit. I used cranberries, but you could use raisins, dates, cherries, apricots, or whatever you want.
Add a handful of nuts (you could toast them for extra yumminess). I used cashews, but really, anything would be good.
Add some toasted sesame seeds if you happen to have a jar of toasted sesame seeds sitting in your pantry.

If you have any sitting around, throw in some leftover chicken, pork, fish or tofu or other fake meat product (I suppose you could also add beef if you were so inclined)

Dressing:
1/4 cup olive oil
the juice from half a small lemon
salt and pepper to taste (I used a small amount of salt because I prepared the quinoa with salt, and the cashews were salted, and I used a TON of pepper)
Add any other herbs or spices you feel like using, or just keep it simple.

Mix the dressing into the quinoa, and voila! You have delicious, simple, healthy quinoa salad.