Quinoa & Buckwheat Salad (or Cereal) with Fruit and Nuts

Yummm... I am eating this salad and loving every bite! I get daily recipe emails from AllRecipes.com. I may not keep all the recipes by adding them to my recipe box at that site, but they give me lots of ideas. I got the idea for this recipe from the email that came in today. I altered it a bit and made a smaller proportion.

QUINOA SALAD with FRUIT and NUTS

They cooked 1 1/2 C quinoa with 1/4 tsp salt and 3 1/2 C water, having been brought to a boil and then simmering covered until tender, about 20-25 minutes. Then allow to cool for 20 minutes.

QUINOA & BUCKWHEAT HOT CEREAL

This reminded me of a hot cereal Monte and me often crave - Quinoa & Buckwheat with yogurt and maple syrup. It's in my Hearth & Home cookbook. Now my understanding of quinoa, besides it being a revived high protein South American grain, is it needs to either be rinsed first or toasted. Quinoa is an acquired taste. It is very unusual. And buckwheat isn't even a grain, but a vegetable, tho it falls in the grain category - probably because it's used as such. For our cereal I toast 1 C Quinoa and 1 C buckwheat, stirring occasionally (you'll hear the quinoa popping) then add a bit of salt and 4 C water, bring to a boil, and then simmer covered, cooking till tender. We store what's left in the fridge for more breakfasts.

BACK to the SALAD

So I basically made the above cereal recipe instead of their suggestion. Their mixture with the below ingredients was said to serve 10. I used 2 C of my cooked cereal for 2 servings, eating as a main dish, rather than a small side (we Americans need to think of veggie side dishes moreso as the main meal with meats as sides - I like to grill marinated meats and slice some of it to add to salads). With their quinoa proportion I'll give you the rest of the salad ingredients and you can mix what amount you want.

-1 bunch green onions, chopped (I used a bunch of chives)
-3/4 C chopped celery
-1/2 C raisins (I used craisins - and probably more)
-1 pinch cayenne pepper
-1 Tb vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
-1 Tb distilled white vinegar (I don't ever use this kind of vinegar for any cooking, only with my textile art when dyeing - I used a mixture of rice and balsamic vinegars)
-2 Tb lemon juice (I used lime, cuz that's what I already had cut. And I used less, using more of this proportion with my vinegars)
-2 Tb sesame oil (I used toasted sesame oil)
-1/3 C chopped fresh cilantro (I probably did more)
-3/4 C chopped pecans (I toasted them)
-(I added some fresh minced garlic)

Mix it all together and let set at room temp for an hour to allow the flavors to blend. I bet this would even taste better as a left over!

I get a weekly email recipe from SplendidTable.org. Our NPR radio station no longer carries this program, but I used to listen to it all the time. I've gotten great recipes from Lynne Rossetto Kasper. I also have a recipe box at FoodNetwork.com - I can add recipes to this box, which is a great place to have things organized. But now I'm doing this blog in the hopes of organizing my kitchen escapades!