This wonderful quinoa salad recipe came from Chloe Donaldson. It was a great “stepping-up-to-the-plate” experience for me because I had to be willing to make up all the proportions myself—something I definitely wouldn’t have tried before beginning this cooking exercise with all of you. Thank you Chloe! And I was totally prepared to do that, really, (a HUGE step!), but when it came right down to it, Anna was going to be one of my guests and she loves to cook, so she came over early to help me navigate those unknowns. Turns out it was creative and fun.
We actually started the day before at Anna’s house. We were using some jalapenos along with the habaneros, and they needed to be roasted first (Anna wasn’t sure about the habaneros, so we tossed them on the grill for a couple of minutes too). I hadn’t ever roasted chilis before and I don’t have a grill, so Anna had me over. This, of course, called for margaritas and snacks.
I cooked the grain in the morning (in chicken stock rather than water), the day of the dinner, to give it plenty of time to cool. Here, by the way, is a link that answered all my questions about cooking quinoa: How to Cook Qui. Chloe didn’t say to roast the Brazil nuts, but I decided to give it a try. Did that in the morning, too. In the late afternoon, I skinned and seeded the peppers. I also squeezed some limes, and washed and chopped the cilantro.
Then Anna and our friend, Vera, came an hour before dinner to help assemble the dish and make the salsa.
But without further ado, here’s the recipe:
Quinoa Salad With Green Fire Salsa from Chloe
I’m a reader of your blog, and I saw you were looking for recipes. =)
I have some that work pretty well, although I’m not really an exact
cook. So, I can’t give exact directions very well…But, anyway, one that is good is a quinoa salad. You boil quinoa (Jeane here: I used 2 lbs. equaling just over 4C dry, 12C cooked), cooking it like rice. Then, you let it cool. You cut up cucumber, habanero peppers (Jeane again: these are VERY HOT! I used more jalopanos with just a couple of habaneros) or some other kind of pepper if you want different levels of spice, cilantro, and Brazil nuts (Jeane: I used 1 lb.). Mix these into the cooled quinoa.
Then, make a sauce of plain yogurt, lime juice, and ground chili pepper, and mix that into the quinoa. It can also be good with tomatoes, especially yellow ones.
Sometimes, a green fire salsa is good with that. You just blend tomatillos, cilantro, lime (!), habaneros or jalapenos, and spring onions (and garlic if you like). If you want it more watery, add yellow tomatoes.
Anyway, it’s really simple and very good. I made both of them up myself. Hope you enjoy! =)
Chloe is absolutely right. It is surprisingly good. And we had lots of leftovers for Anna to take to her drawing group.
And for desert, Anna brought chocolate ice—very Swedish. It is melted dark chocolate with coconut, put into ice cube trays and frozen. A perfect end to a delicious meal.
Love to you all,
Jeane
Jeane, another great visual thanks, Bill
Thanks Bill. It was a very pretty dish to put together.
Fabulous…wow I want to have my cooking friends over and we can do this!! I am so lazy, but I do like food that you can make in stages like this!! I am going to send you my recipe for kale chips that is easy but does require a dehydrator or a low heat oven…is yours gas? My oven is gas to had to go out and find that dehydrator for myself. I LOVE my Kale chips and they are sooooooooo good for you as the food value is not cooked out and they are great sprinkled on ANYTHING…well except deserts perhaps – ugh.
Looks like delicious fun you have had in this blog.
It was really fun making this and SO yummy! Let me know what you and your friends think.
I’m excited to get your kale chips recipe! Am I reading this right that I’ll be able to use my electric oven and not have to buy a dehydrator? Because I probably won’t do that!