Farmer’s Market Curried Quinoa Salad

I love this time of year. Markets are overflowing with beautiful ripe produce, much of it available is organic, and the bounty means that generally the prices are at their best. As much as I try to restrain myself, I often end up with tons of stuff that I need to get creative with. One of my mom’s favourite expressions when someone overloaded their plate was that “their eye was bigger than their stomach”…in my case, right now particularly, my eye was definitely bigger than my refrigerator 🙂

I saw the “bones” of this recipe in a local magazine…I did intend to stay on course, just substituting quinoa for the couscous called for in the original recipe, but then I ended up going completely off piste, and the finished product in no way resembles the original…except for the little round grainy things 🙂

1 cup quinoa

2 cups vegetable or chicken stock

1/2 cup raisins

2/3 cup roasted unsalted cashews

1/2 English cucumber, chopped

2 large cloves garlic, minced

2-3 green onions, chopped

1 yellow or red bell pepper, chopped

1 nectarine, chopped

1 large or 2 small carrots, peeled and grated

3/4 cup mayonnaise

juice of one lime

1 tsp. sugar

3 tbsp. Madras curry powder

salt and pepper to taste

Bring stock and quinoa to boil in a pot. Add raisins when stock is boiling, reduce heat to low and cook for 15 minutes or so until liquid is mostly absorbed. Let stand for a few minutes, fluff with a fork and leave to cool completely.

In the meantime, prepare all the vegetables and fruit above and put into a bowl with the cashews. Mix the mayonnaise with the lime juice, sugar and curry powder. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

When quinoa is completely cool, gently mix it into the vegetables with the dressing until all is combined.

Refrigerate and serve when cool.

This could be made more “substantial” with the addition of some cooked shrimp or chicken.

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