Then I realized I had most, but not all, of the ingredients. So I made my version, which included the following:
Salad ingredients:
1 cup quinoa
1 can of black beans (or about 2 cups)
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup of green beans, chopped
1/2 cup of red pepper, diced
1/2 cup of green pepper, diced
1 tsp cumin
1 medium ripe tomato
1 cup chopped cucumber
1 Tbsp cilantro (I used dried, but whatev)
Dressing:
3 Tbsp lime juice (fresh if you have it, but I had some in a bottle)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
ground pepper to taste
Here's what I did:
Put your quinoa (1 cup of quinoa with about 1 and 1/2 cups water) in a pan. Bring it to a boil, cover it, turn it to low, and cook for 15 minutes.
While that was cooking, I drained and rinsed my can of Trader Joe's black beans and set them aside in a bowl.
I minced up my garlic cloves, and sauteed them in a pan for a few minutes with 1 tsp of olive oil. My celery and peppers were already diced up, so they were just sitting in another bowl waiting to be added to the pan.
I added the celery, green beans, and peppers to the pan and sauteed for 5 minutes.
Once I added the above to the pan, I turned off the burner for the quinoa so I could let it cool a bit.
Then I made the dressing by putting the lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper in a 2 cup measuring bowl and whisking it. I put it next to my rinsed black beans and got out a large bowl to dump everything into once the veggies were done.
So...back to the sauteed veggies. I added the cumin and 2 more minutes to the timer for the veggies. Then I chopped up the tomato and cucumber.
Once the timer went off, I grabbed the bowl and dumped everything in it:
quinoa, black beans, sauteed veggies, tomato, and cucumber. I added the cilantro and then poured the dressing over it.
Stirred it all up til everything was nicely coated, put a lid on it, and let it chill in the refrigerator. You could eat it warm, but since it's been so hot here, I decided a chilled salad is the way to go.
This recipe makes a pretty large batch, so make sure you have a big ol' bowl to use and store it, unless you're planning on sharing with several people.
Once I decided it was time to eat it, I will say it was slightly bland the way I made it. But I am afraid of cilantro AND of the jalepeno that was cited in the original recipe. However, I put a bit more salt and pepper on the portion I doled out on my plate and was immensely satisfied. Season to your taste preference and enjoy!!
