French Fridays with Dorie….Quinoa, Fruit and Nut Salad

Quinoa, Fruit and Nut Salad

My winter garden with our morning snow! April Fools!!

Today is April Fool's day! Mother Nature has played yet, another prank on us. We woke up to more snow falling from the spring sky! This is the fourth snow storm we have had, since the first day of spring! My little daffodils are so confused!! As I peruse the blogisphere, I read about people starting their gardens and I am so jealous! I yearn for the long days of summer where I spend hours getting my hands dirty digging, planting and enjoying the fruits of my labor. I know it's right around the corner.  In the mean time, I will have to make my salads with the ingredients I get from my grocery store.  The salad I made last night was a lovely grain salad.  I really enjoy grain salads. I grew up with them! Tabbouleh was the salad of choice in our family. Cracked wheat was in just about everything my mother and grandmother made. I also make  a wonderful Wheat Berry Waldorf salad from my Whole Foods Cookbook.  Dorie's salad calls for quinoa as it's main ingredient. I've had quinoa for breakfast with milk and blueberries but, never in a savory salad.  I was intrigued to try this recipe. First of all, this was so easy to make. I felt like I was cheating! I started by boiling my quinoa. While it was cooking, I chopped some apricots. I decided to use cranberries and apricots for my fruit. For the nuts, I choose sunflower seeds and walnuts. I then followed the recipe as it was written, until I tasted it. I thought it lacked some flavor…so I added some cinnamon! Hey, I'm Lebanese, we put cinnamon in just about everything! For me it was the kick this salad needed. I really enjoyed this salad and will make it again. In fact, I am looking forward to having it for lunch today! I did serve it with the yogurt on top but, I think this salad stands alone quite well.  I will eat it with no embellishments today!
As I say every week, this recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspans new cookbook "Around My French Table". You should get yourself a copy!

Quinoa, cranberries, nuts

The quinoa simmering

Everything getting mixed up!

A very lovely salad!

My hyacinths  covered with snow.