Celebrity Pesto Quinoa Salad

You know how sometimes you pull out all the stops when you make a dish? Well, that happened to me yesterday because I knew I was serving Dr. William Sears and his wife Martha at a brunch. If you don’t know who Dr. Bill is, you either do not have kids under the age of 25 or you have been living under a rock. Dr. Bill literally wrote the book on babies. He called it, wait for it, "The Baby Book" and it has a photo of babies on the cover. He and Martha have written somewhere around 50 books, on kids and health, that have been translated into several languages.

1 cup quinoa

1.5 C water

4 large swiss chard leaves, cut into ribbons

½ teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon ground pepper

1/8 C freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 C chopped arugula

1/2 C fresh basil leaves, chopped (a BIG handful, then you chop them)

1 red bell pepper, chopped

16 or so baby carrots, cut into coins (or chop up 2 large carrots)

1 C chopped red onion

1 can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

½ C Dreamy Pesto Sauce

Knowing that royalty might eat my salad I took a little extra time to make my quinoa fabulous. First, I soaked my quinoa in filtered water for about 15 minutes while I harvested chard, basil, arugula, and bell pepper from my Garden. HighOnHealth.org has a great article on soaking quinoa. And, then went to town chopping and chiffonading (that should be a verb) my veggies and fruit. Yes, bell peppers are technically fruit because the seeds are INSIDE. Strawberries are the only fruit with the seeds on the outside. We’ll save that debate for another day.

Probably the biggest secret is the massaging of the chard to break its fibers down while I prepped the other veggies. And, you’ll want to make this salad a day ahead of time to let the flavors marry. In the morning you can say, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Certainly because you‘re gonna a party when you eat the salad.

I like al dente, so I use 1.5 cups water to cook the quinoa. If you want more flavor, use veggie broth or “No Chicken Broth” by Imagine. Oooh! How about wine? Use a white or you will have an odd color grain. Let the quinoa cool by fluffing it with a fork or large spoon many times until you do not see steam rising any more.

Mix the cooled quinoa with all of the ingredients. The salad will take on a light green hue because of the pesto sauce.