Peachy Keen Quinoa Salad

 

It’s summer in Texas!  And sometimes, when its super hot out, its good to have something light and cool to eat.  This summer salad fits the bill.  Lots of great color and flavor, without being heavy.  Plus, I’m sure its super good for you and other things.

We spied this recipe for a peach quinoa salad in Bon Appetit magazine, and decided we had to try it out.  We like quinoa, which is the trendy thing to do, but we hardly ever use it because we don’t have that many interesting recipes (shocking, I know).

First up is the quinoa.  Quinoa is a type of seed, but it’s typically used like a grain.  You’ll find it in the weird grain aisle with the barley, bulgar, and cous cous (and by “weird grain aisle” I mean where they keep the rice).  Anyway…this cooks much like rice in boiling water, but it takes about half as long.

When it was done cooking, we spread it out on a baking sheet.  This was just a way of cooling it down quickly. 

Next we get to pickle some red onions.  We LOVE pickled onions.  They are really easy to make, and the flavor is awesome.  First we boiled some apple cider vinegar with salt and sugar in order to get the pickling liquid.

  

Then we poured it over the onions and let it sit for about 20 minutes.  Then it’s done!  It changes from purple to a kind of neon pink color.  Kinda freaky!  It also produces a strong acidic flavor-element to the salad.

 

Now onto the peaches.  Peaches are a tricky fruit to buy at the grocery store.  When you get a good one that’s perfectly ripe, they are amazing.  But so frequently the peaches we buy are flavorless and dry when you cut into them.  Since it’s peach season in Texas, we decided to give them another try. 

Lucky for us, these peaches turned out great.  Lots of good, juicy flavor.  I will confess that I had some frozen peaches as back up just in case! 

Now it’s time to assemble!  Here we have peaches, cherry tomatoes, pickled onions, salt, pepper, chives, olive oil, and a little bit of the pickling liquid from the onions.

Next we folded in some arugula.  The dressing from the salad wilts the leaves a little bit over time.  Seriously, look at those colors.

And finally we add the cooled down quinoa.  Tastes like summer!