FFwD: Quinoa, Fruit, and Nut Salad

The French Fridays with Dorie recipe for this week was a pretty quinoa, nut, and dried fruit salad that I absolutely loved.  I used a really pretty tri-color quinoa from the bulk bin at the store, and mixed it with dried peaches, golden raisins, sunflower seeds, and chopped pecans.  I changed up the dressing a bit, mixing together Meyer lemon juice, fresh ginger, olive oil, salt, and pepper. This was all served over mixed greens, seasoned just with salt and pepper.  I was worried the greens might be too dry - I pretty much never serve greens without some sort of oil or dressing - but it actually worked perfectly with the quinoa salad and the topping of plain Greek yogurt.

Although this dish was terrific as-is, I dressed up some of the leftovers for lunch with some crumbled lamb-rosemary sausage.  Wow! This made the salad even yummier, and the flavors of the lamb went really well with everything else.  Overall, I was very impressed with this salad and I think it makes a for the perfect easy, healthy, and tasty lunch.  Although the recipe says it serves four, I got three servings out of a half recipe - one right when I made it, and two as leftovers over the next few days.  The salad keeps really well, making this an excellent make-ahead lunch that can be packed for the next day.