Black Quinoa Salad with Grilled Vegetables, Basil, Feta and Pine Nuts

WinnieAb's Notes: You don’t have to use grilled vegetables in this salad. If you like the idea of the zucchini and the eggplant but don’t feel like firing up the grill, you could roast them instead. Or you...

You don’t have to use grilled vegetables in this salad. If you like the idea of the zucchini and the eggplant but don’t feel like firing up the grill, you could roast them instead. Or you could use chopped tomatoes, cucumber, peppers…lots of combinations would work here, and they’d all be delicious. Quinoa seeds are naturally coated with a bitter substance that needs to be removed; you can easily accomplish this by putting your quinoa into a fine mesh strainer and rinsing thoroughly with warm water before cooking. For this quinoa salad, you cook the quinoa using 1 cup quinoa to two cups water. Bring to a boil in a small pot on the stove, cover, reduce heat to simmer, and let cook until water is absorbed. Quinoa cooks fast, so this only takes about 15 minutes; when it is done cooking, turn the heat off but leave it covered for another 10 minutes before fluffing with a fork.