Quinoa salad for dinner!

Quinoa is good for runners... it has lots of iron (more iron than any other grain) and protein, and is one of the healthiest grains you can eat.  I try to eat quinoa instead of rice whenever I can because it's so packed with nutrition.


Little-known fact is my secret love of light salads with grains in them--especially tabouleh, quinoa salads, and bean salads.  We have this health food store called Raisin Rack in town and all summer I was eating the grain salads off of their salad bar--a really awesome variety, all kinds of things.  I don't like really vinegary ones, though... and I haven't really tried making any grain salads at home, beyond a pilaf of sorts that I made a few months ago.  Not that they seem particularly complex... I just never seem to have ingredients on hand.


Tonight I was digging around for something to eat and came across this recipe over at Susan V's Fat Free Vegan.  This beautiful photo is hers, to entice you to visit her blog (everything she makes is amazing):

My version of the recipe:

1. Cook 1 1/2c. dry quinoa in a rice cooker with 1 clove crushed garlic (Make it raw by using sprouted quinoa... this would be awesome, but I didn't plan ahead)
2. Chop these veggies into a bowl: 1 large cucumber, peeled, seeded, and diced
   2 medium-large tomatoes, finely chopped
   kernels of 2 ears of cooked corn (about 1 cup) (make it raw with uncooked)
   1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and diced (meh.. I leave seeds in because I want it as spicy as possible)
   1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas (I used black beans bc I got back from the store and was out of chickpeas..)
   1/2 cup scallions, thinly sliced
   2/3 cup parsley — minced
   1/3 cup fresh mint — minced
   1 ripe avocado, peeled, pitted, and diced
3. Stir quinoa into bowl; pour on 1/4c lime juice, 3 T water, and several huge dashes of chipotle powder and/or smoked spanish paprika; salt to taste
4. eat eat eat

This is so simple and yummy.  You should make it, seriously.