Quinoa Colour Salad

I was at the gym on Friday and was watching Chef At Home, like I always do when I work out. Chef Michael Smith was doing an episode on healthy alternatives. He made a meatloaf with ground turkey instead of ground beef, an apple pie with whole wheat flour and oats crust (instead of lard and white flour!), and a quinoa salad. 

For those who don't know about it, quinoa (pronounced "kee-no-ah" or "keen-wah") is a grain that orginates in the Andes of South America. It cooks similarly to rice and looks just like couscous, but is packed with WAY more nutrients. Check this out:

Per 45 gram serving (cooked quinoa on its own):

180 calories

3.5 grams of fat (0 saturated, 0 trans fat)

7 grams of protein (This is phenomenal for all you vegetarian types!!!)

7% of recommended daily intake of Potassium

4% Vitamin A

2% Calcium

15% Iron (More awesome-ness for vegetarians!)

20% Vitamin E

6& Vitamin B1

15% Vitamin B2

8% Folate (the "pregnancy" vitamin!)

20% Phosphorus

25% Magnesium

20% Zinc (awesome for fighting colds)

Anyway, after seeing all this nutritional content, I decided to try out the Quinoa Colour Salad recipe - called so because it has so many colourful veggies in it! I'll save the whole wheat and oats apple pie for another time!

Ingredients:

1 cup quinoa

1 carrot, peeled and grated

1 red pepper, seeded and diced

3 green onions, sliced thinly

1 cucumber, chopped

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

1/4 cup olive oil

salt

pepper

Directions:

1. Rinse quinoa in cold water. It washes off the bitter coating that naturally covers the grain.

2. Cook as directed on package.

3. In the meantime, add all of your veggies to a bowl.

4. Add the lemon zest and lemon juice.

5. When the quinoa is done, fluff with a fork and add to veggies and lemon.

6. Add olive oil.

7. Salt and pepper to taste.

8. Toss well.

Notes:

You can serve this warm or cold. I tried it warm, and I think I would prefer it cold. 

The original recipe calls for fresh parsely, diced. I might add that next time, but I forgot to pick it up when I was at the grocery store. 

I might add some more veggies - tomatoes, seeded and chopped, would be great. Or sundried tomatoes... mmmm...

As an alternative to the olive oil, you could add a low-fat, oil-based salad dressing to season the salad.

Otherwise, the original recipe is pretty damn good.  Thumbs up!