Quinoa Salad with Honey-Lime Vinaigrette

In the midst of getting knocked-out this summer by heat wave after heat wave, my craving for salads has been endless; however, eating salads night after night can get a little mundane, especially when my go-to dressing is just a basic combination of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Well, it's time to switch it up and start experimenting with salad dressings - one of the most ideal ways of using extra virgin olive oil.

Greens are greens, but they can transform depending on what you put on them. I was inspired after eating lunch a couple months ago at a vegan restaurant in my neighborhood, where salads are their obvious specialty. Now I'm no vegan, but it was their Quinoa salad with an amazingly tasty honey-lime vinaigrette that had me going back. After a few attempts to get the dressing just right, it has now become one of my favorite salads to make at home.

For the Salad:

Cooked Quinoa
Mixed leafy greens
Sweet Corn
Red Pepper
Avocado

As it is a salad, use as little or as much of each ingredient as you like. First, prepare some quinoa according to the package directions and let cool. I like to prepare a batch of it and keep it in the fridge for future salad-making. Go crazy with mixing up the greens. I found a great mix at my local farmer's market with spinach, red leaf, mustard greens, pea shoots, and watercress. With greens, the common rule is that the more bitter-tasting the green, the more nutrients it holds. I also found some fresh New Jersey sweet corn at the market as its just now coming into season, so cut the corn off the fresh cob and add it raw to the bowl of greens (yes, you can eat it raw and it's delicious!). Next, add some cooked quinoa then top-off the salad with some thinly-sliced red pepper and sliced ripe avocado.

For the Vinaigrette:

3 tsp. Dijon Mustard
2 tsp. Honey
1/2 tsp. Fresh Lime Juice
1/3 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

I find this recipe to make enough for about 3-4 single-serving meal-sized salads and I used Greek Thyme Honey, the juice of one small key lime, and a wonderfully fruity Nocellara extra virgin olive oil from Sicily. Add all ingredients to a small bowl and whisk until smooth and creamy. Store any leftover dressing in a jar for up to a week.

No really, fat is GOOD for you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Fat is not as evil as we deemed it in the 80's (we only got fatter) and the poor nutrient is in a desperate need of a media makeover. Sure, it's not as simple as 'eat as much fat as you like, it won't matter,' but we do need to start looking at fat in a different light.

Tom Mueller, author of Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil, tackles the subject in Olive Oil and the F Word where he reminds us that fat "controls and modulates your fertility, your appetite and your mood" as well as your immune system. A healthy intake of natural fat also keeps your skin and hair soft and radiant. I remember my favorite esthetician once telling me how she could tell which clients were on low-fat diets due to their skin appearing more thin, dry and dull. Great skin, a healthy immune system, and a regulated metabolism - isn't this what we all want?

So the challenge today is how to convince the general public that it's OK to eat some fat. Perhaps we need to look to Southern Europe, and Greece especially, where families consume large amounts of olive oil - whole pitchers of the stuff - in a matter of days and yet obesity is rare. And it's not just olive oil. Look at the French, for instance. The entire country lives off of cream, butter, and cheese and we envy their waistlines. It's certainly time to start asking some questions. In the meantime, pour on the olive oil!