You do indeed eat with your eyes ~ Recipe: Red quinoa salad

I love colorful foods. I also love healthy foods. And sometimes these two concepts are like oil and water; they don’t always match up. Take grains for example. Healthy? Yes. Pretty? I wouldn’t necessarily agree on that one. Think about it: brown rice: brown, barley: light brown, wheat berries: dark brown–brown, brown, brown! And my favorite quinoa: brown with a touch of a yellow hue, but still pretty dull in color. Till now.

Although on the market for awhile, I’m first coming around to experimenting with the lovely, the beautiful red quinoa. Alter Eco Fair Trade produces a lovely red quinoa that will end the drabs.

Cooking up just like regular quinoa, so if you are already a quinoa cook, there is nothing new to learn. But it’s a whole lot easier on the eyes!

This particular company I am fond of because they are a team of trade visionaries; 1500 farmers benefit from the production of this product.

www.altereco.com or on your grocer’s shelf

RED QUINOA SALAD

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 small red pepper, diced
1 small yellow pepper diced
1 celery stalk, diced***
2 scallions, minced

Dressing

2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 Tbsp rice vinegar
1 garlic clove, finely minced
2 tsp minced fresh chives
3 Tbsp olive oil
kosher or sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

½ cup roasted unsalted cashews

1. Rinse the dry quinoa in a fine sieve under running water for 1 minute. Bring the 2 cups of water to a boil in a small saucepan. Slowly add the quinoa and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer on low heat for 15 minutes. When all the water is absorbed and you can see steam holes on the surface of the quinoa, remove the pot from the stove. Add the quinoa to a bowl and let cool for about ½ hour.

2. Add the carrots red and yellow peppers, celery and scallions to the bowl with the quinoa.

3. Prepare the dressing: Whisk the lemon juice, rice vinegar garlic and chives. Slowly in a stream whisk in the oil, whisking constantly until emulsified. Season with salt and pepper.
Add the dressing to the quinoa salad and toss. Taste for seasoning. Add the cashews and toss again.

All photographs courtesy of Olga Berman

***And now a few words from Olga: to save yourself time, start by cooking the quinoa. While quinoa is cooking, chop your vegetables. I’m not a huge fan of celery, so I used a peeled and cubed cucumber instead. This salad is great for leftovers (just don’t add all the nuts at once), and would be good alternative for your summer picnic (that is when summer is finally here). Feel free to add other vegetables (i.e. tomatoes) and experiment with herbs: basil, parsley, cilantro.