I can always count on quinoa to be a great base to a salad, and the Black Bean, Quinoa & Citrus Salad I made this week was no different. You see, I’m not a huge leafy salad kinda girl. Sometimes I might feel the need for a good Caesar salad or a chopped salad when I’m ordering out, but I just never seem to crave them.
My favorite salads always seem to involve quinoa, so when I saw this recipe on Iowa Girl Eats’ site, I knew I had to try it. This quinoa salad was a bit different than the past ones I’ve made with the addition of sweet corn and grapefruit. Now I really love grapefruit, so to find a use for it with another of my favorite items, quinoa, I just had to give this recipe a whirl.
My sister came over earlier this week for a day of working together. Since we both work from home, it’s nice to meet up and have a change of scenery. And for me, it’s nice to not just talk to myself and have someone answer me! So I knew that would be the perfect day to try out this recipe. She and I have very similar tastes, so all it took was for me to say I was making a quinoa salad for her to be on board.
I started off by cooking 2 ears of corn. This Summer I learned a great method to cook corn. With the husks on, just throw them into a 350 degree preheated oven for 30 minutes. Then remove them from the oven, let them cool a bit so you can handle them, and they are really easy to handle. The husks and silk came off very easy, because the corn basically steamed within the husks while baking. Then I just cut off the corn from the cob.
Then I moved to my grapefruit. I simply segmented the grapefruit and cut it into bite-sized pieces. Super easy, and so delicious! If you aren’t familiar with how to cut up a grapefruit, check out a recipe I did earlier this year for a Wintry Salad with Grapefruit and Goat Cheese and scroll down to see how I segment my grapefruit. Super easy and keeps you from making a giant mess and wasting food.
The rest of the chopping, draining, and measuring get done while the quinoa cooks and cools. The salad comes together very quickly and dress it with a lime juice and olive oil dressing. It’s a bright, cheerful salad with tons of color, different textures, and great flavor! Hooray, I have one more reason to just adore quinoa – as if I needed one!
For the recipe and step by step instructions for delicious salad, click here.
What I was cooking up a year ago: Cookies and Sea Salt…Really?!
Yes, really! These cookies were uber easy to make, which I love, and then they get topped with sea salt and let me tell you – that salt just kicks up the flavor a million notches. Definitely some cookies that I need to be baking again soon! This section of my posts is quickly becoming my favorite thing, since it reminds me of fabulous recipes that I MUST MAKE AGAIN ASAP!! Add this to your list…you’ll thank me!
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