 Do you ever have days when you just don't feel like putting a lot of time into meal preparation? Well, I do sometimes and on those kinds of days I have certain recipes that I fall back on and one of them is a crunchy quinoa salad. Remember quinoa is just this tiny little protein packed grain and it cooks really fast in only 15 to 20 minutes. So I've already cooked one cup of raw quinoa. I put it in a pot with one and two-thirds cup water, bring it to a boil, turn it down a little bit, cover it, and let it simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes. All the water gets absorbed and the quinoa gets perfectly cooked. So just use one and two-thirds cup of water for that. So I've got that cooked already and I've got it aside and then I've got some nuts ready to go. I have heated some, probably about one tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. I'm actually going to turn it down a little bit. And I've measured out a couple of tablespoons of raw sunflower seeds. That means they haven't been roasted, they're not salted. And I've got some almonds. Normally I used just a couple tablespoons of sliced, but today I had some slivered almonds and sliced almonds that I wanted to use up. So I'm just going to use both of them, but usually I use two tablespoons. And then I've got a quarter cup of pine nuts. Once these nuts have reached the color you want, immediately transfer them to your salad bowl or your mixing bowl. So I'm going to put them right in so that they stop cooking. I don't want them to get any darker. And then I'm going to add my cooked quinoa. And remember I've got red quinoa today. I'm going to put that right over the nuts. And this salad is actually good eaten warm or at room temperature. I've chopped up a nice amount of parsley, probably half cup. I'm going to add that. And I've also chopped up some dried cherries. I like a little sweetened tart in the salad too. And that's all there is to it. I'm going to mix this up and then I'll show you what it looks like. The parsley adds such nice color. Just season it with a little salt and pepper. And it's ready to go. It's a nice little side salad. I'm Sue Dodin sharing Good Food for Good Life 365.