Can you say kumquat and quinoa five times fast?

Jay was all on his own last night for this recipe in which we didn’t know how to properly pronounce two of its main ingredients! While I was getting my facial, Jay is was slaving away…okay, I would hardly call it slaving. Here’s his account:

The Zesty Kumquat Quinoa Salad is very easy and takes about 15 minutes. The best part is the only cooking required is boiling your vegetable stock. The problem I found is you will have to cook something to accompany this because it is more of a side dish than a main course. See one of our recent tips about the benefits of kumquats here.

I started by bringing my veggie broth to a boil then stirred in my quinoa, turned the heat down to simmer it, covered, for about 15 minutes. You will have to stir it once or twice so the grains on the bottom don’t burn (see this oversized pic of quinoa; they are strange looking!).

quinoa

While your grains are cooking start cutting up the kumquats into bite sized pieces. As you’ve probably learned, we are big fat cheaters when it comes to ingredients and aren’t afraid of substitutions. I couldn’t find any in my local store, or even in the health foods store that normally has every obscure fruit or vegetable, so I substituted mini oranges that are very sweet and juicy.

Prepping mini oranges

Once the quinoa is cooked put it into a large bowl and add the kumquats, arugula (I used butter lettuce but any flavorful lettuce or even spinach will do…again, my grocery store must not be too worldly), lemon juice, oil, and black pepper. The fresh ground black pepper is key for this all to come together and because veggie broth was used I didn’t add any salt.

Dish in a bowl

This recipe is an excellent side dish to accompany some grilled chicken or fish. It is very light, a little sweet, very tangy, and extremely healthy. I would definitely recommend trying this out the next time you are grilling but keep in mind that this only makes about 4 servings. It’s so light you feel like you’ve hardly eaten anything (coming from the couple who normally needs a burger and beer to feel satisfied, so take this with a grain of salt).

Now Bon Appetit!

Finished product