Quinoa Salad

Just fun facts: Quinoa is highly nutritious. It contain all the essential amino acids, making it a complete protein.Quinoa is sold at many health food stores in bulk.

Ingredients:
1 cup quinoa

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 tsp salt

oil

1 chopped cucumber
1 chopped tomato

1 chopped yellow pepper

1/4 cup chopped parsley

1/4-1/2 cup walnuts (I like to use candied walnuts. See below)

1/4 cup olive oil

3 Tbs lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

-Soak quinoa for 15 minutes in a medium size pot. Rinse several times. Add water, oil and salt to pot. Bring to full boil. Cover and let boil 1 minutes. Turn down heat very low and let cook 15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to sit 5 minutes with lid on. Fluff with fork. Cool.

In a large bowl mix together quinoa, veggies and nuts. Combine olive oil and lemon juice to make dressing. Add to salad. Mix. Add salt and pepper to taste.

-Quinoa can be cooked and refrigerated ahead of time if desired.

-Easy Candied walnuts: cook some nuts in small pan on medium for a few minutes (faster than in the oven). Remove. Add some sugar to pan and melt it. Add the nuts, mix and then lay them as separately as possible on greased wax paper that is sitting on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle on some salt.