Crunchy Quinoa Salad

My good friend Andrea inspired this recipe. I saw the recipe she posted yesterday here and improvised it to what I had and what I wanted the salad to be. It worked!

So I am soaking my brown rice now. I rinse my rice and then drain it and put it in my crockpot. Then I cover it with an extra 2 inches of boiling water and put the lid on. There it sits overnight. Not on, just soaking in what I tell myself is hot water, at least part of the time. In the morning I turn the crockpot on high and add some coconut milk to cook it in. You cook rice in a 1:2 ratio, rice to liquid so I follow that and it cooks in my crockpot, after soaking all night, on high for about 2 hours. It's yummy and supposed to be better for the digestive tract this way.

Ok, that being said.... I had cooked brown rice in my fridge so this recipe came about in less than a half hour. Sweet.

I cooked the Quinoa following the package directions but I used light coconut milk instead of water to cook it in. (light coconut milk is just coconut milk and water, no fake sugar or anything). While the Quinoa was cooking I chopped up the following:

1 green apple

2 stalks celery

1/4 fresh pineapple

I added this to the Quinoa when it was fluffy and stirred it right in with some fresh lemon juice. Then I added 1/3 cup raw sunflower and a handful of dried cherries (no added sugar. I dried them myself last summer and they were hard and brittle but the hot quinoa took care of that nicely.)

Last I added some leftover rice from my fridge. It was cold but when I mixed it in everything was about the same temperature.

Super Yummy! Refreshing and filling and (you know me) PROTEIN PACKED!

I didn't add any sweetener so it wasn't super sweet but the coconut milk added the flavor it needed and the lemon juice added some sour along with the green apples. The pineapple also sweetened but the unsalted raw seeds added the perfect crunch and texture. And I love celery, I think every salad deserves that crispness that celery brings. The cherries, more sweet but I didn't add a ton and this is how I got my little girl to taste it. Adelle loved this salad, she ate 3 helpings and that was worth the cherries for me ;) She will not be my picky eater forever!