Last week, I made a very healthy Kumquat Quinoa Salad. Nick loved the salad, but wasn’t a huge fan of the kumquats, so I thought I’d like to try the salad again using dried cherries instead. This weekend I got the chance to do just that. Nick’s dad was here visiting for the weekend. He likes healthy food even more than I do, so I thought the salad would be the perfect side dish to whip up for him.

I followed the same recipe, but made a few changes:

• Plain white quinoa instead of the pretty tricolored (couldn’t find it here)
• Dried cherries instead of kumquats
• Pea shoots instead of arugula
• Grapefruit White Balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice

What are pea shoots, you ask? I have no idea. But the health food store we went to didn’t have arugula, and these things were about the same size, sounded interesting, and were organic and local. They were literally packed in a ziploc bag from someone’s backyard farm. They were really good… Tasted like raw peas in leafy green form!

The Grapefruit White Balsamic was something we brought home last summer from a cute little oil & vinegar shop in Missouri, and gave a nice sweetness to the salad. The quinoa wasn’t nearly as fun as the confetti like tricolored one I found at Whole Foods, but taste wise it was pretty much the same.

Like before, I dumped everything into a big bowl…

Dressed and tossed!

The salad was a hit and the modified ingredients worked well! Success!

In case you were wondering what we had with it… we have an AMAZING fish market here. Drool.

No recipe because there’s no need to do anything to this fish. It’s so fresh and flavorful, all it needs is a little olive oil, salt and pepper and a quick bake in the oven!