Thursday, March 31, 2011

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.

24 comments:

  1. What a great idea using the tricolor quinoa!

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  2. What a great idea to add lamb sausage - it would entirely change the flavor of this dish especially with the sweetness of the Meyer lemon juice. Your salad looks and sounds so very good!

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  3. Sausage? Now you are talking!!! What a fantastic idea! I'm going to do that for a picnic this weekend! I got a lot more servings out of it too...

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  4. Rosemary Sausage - now that is inspired genius! How wonderful!

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  5. Looks great, Sara! Makes me want to make the real recipe! LOL!

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  6. The sausage sounds great with this. Love the looks of the tri-color quinoa.
    I know I only made a half recipe and it definitely was more than four servings. I can't imagine the full recipe being only four servings...

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  7. Your quinoa salad looks great! I used all 3 colors in mine too :)

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  8. Wish I had some greek yogurt to put on mine today! Yours looks great! :)

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  9. Rosemary sausage sounds delicious! I love your picture, too.

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  10. Looks so pretty! I'm making it today and will post later this evening!

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  11. I've never seen tri-color quinoa before! Sounds great

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  12. I am joining the club of not knowing about the tri color option. Since Nana and I knew nothing about quinoa before this recipe...this should come as no shock :) Your photo looks delish and I love the idea of adding that sausage. I really think my family will enjoy this dish again with the addition of a meat option like that and I have some perfect spiced sausage in the freezer that I will use. Great idea !

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  13. I also halved the recipe and got leftovers. DIBS! I'm intrigued by the lamb sausage; never seen it before.

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  14. What a fabulous leftover idea! Your salad looks beautiful, Sara :)

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  15. I'm thinking about making this breakfast tomorrow (seems to be my pattern). Your picture looks exactly how I imagined it after reading the recipe. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this one but from the write-ups, it looks promising. I found some interesting herbs at the store today - some orange mint so I'm thinking about using that. LOVE the idea of the lamb sausage - brilliant.

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  16. I agree...it was good enough to serve the greens even without dressing.

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  17. Oh, tricolor quinoa! How pretty is that! I loved this salad (including the leftovers), but mine was a little...beige. I completely missed the part about the greens and the yogurt, but I was happy with this as a simple side dish.

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  18. Great idea to add protein to your salad. I love dried peaches too; I bet they were delicious. I'll have to try this with peaches next time. Thanks for the idea!

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  19. I agree this is a winner, and can be dressed up so many ways. Fresh ginger is a great idea! and your tricolor quinoa is so pretty. I find that Dorie's serving sizes are incredibly generous. Sometimes I forget, and I actually doubled this because I wanted to make half without fruit for my husband. Fortunately, it keeps well, and we have been enjoying for lunch for days.

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  20. Your dish looks and sounds perfect! I love how you also served it with lamb and rosemary sausage. I'd like some of that sausage right now as a matter of fact :)

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  21. Your salad is so pretty, Sara. I actually forgot to serve it with salad and yogurt. (And don't you just love lamb?)

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  22. I love your variations - and adding some lamb sausage to the leftovers sounds really good.

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  23. This looks absolutely yummy!

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