Everyone's into Quinoa: Corn, Feta & Quinoa Salad

Corn, Feta and Quinoa Salad

Adapted from an adaptation from Everyday with Rachel Ray 

Rachel Ray has become a part of our household – though we did not invite her in. I think I must have accidentally not unclicked some checkbox on some internet site I was exploring—and the next thing you know, we are getting Everyday with Rachel Ray in the mail every month. If I get to it first, I try to recycle immediately, but my daughter insists—and I’m sure she is right!—that there are good recipes to be explored if we just take the time. She stacks the magazines up in a corner of my study, or in her own room, and she’ll probably get to them. Eventually.

In the meantime, I was searching for a recipe for a salad using quinoa, and came upon a blog with a recipe (Corn, Feta, and Quinoa Salad) that had been adapted from that very magazine—an issue which I’m sure is sitting around our house somewhere. We had some friends over for dinner and I adapted it some more myself—in part because whenever we have people over in July it is always beastly hot and better to have done the cooking in the early part of the day. In fact, the evening turned out to be lovely—but this was a delicious complement to the bluefish Steve grilled (and the peach salsa I made as a garnish).

2 cups quinoa, cooked (I used multi-colored)

1 large can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

4 T olive oil

4 T rice wine vinegar

4 T lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 - 1 cup basil leaves, julienned

1 cup corn kernels (2 ears of corn)

12 oz. feta cheese, cubed (I quadrupled this from the original recipe -- and my son thought the only thing lacking in the salad was "more feta")

salad greens

Toss quinoa, chickpeas, basil, corn and feta together. In a separate bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Drizzle over the quinoa mixture and refrigerate. Serve chilled or room temperature over salad greens. Yum!