Adventures in Cooking - Quinoa Salad and Salmon Patties

Tonight was an adventure in cooking, the first I've done in a while.  I have issues with gluten, and for a while now I've been wanting to try a Quinoa salad, a gluten-free grain.  Quinoa is a small grain, similar in some ways to cous cous, but it's gluten-free,   Except for not giving myself quite enough time, it turned out really well, and was really simple.

The Quinoa salad was essentially just Quinoa, prepared as directed, and vegetables.  While it was cooking, I sauteed up some broccoli and chopped carrots with a bit of Mrs. Dash lemon pepper seasoning.  Once done, I let all these cool for a bit and dumped them in a bowl and put in the refridgerator.  While cooling, I boiled up an ear of sweet corn, which I cut off the cob and added to the salad.  After about 15 minutes, I added some tomato-basil feta cheese to the salad, a dash of olive oil and some Kraft Olive Oil & Parmesan salad dressing (to taste).  Served over a leaf of Romaine lettuce, it turned out to be really good, and nice and cool on a hot summer night.

With the salad tonight we added a Chipotle Salmon Pattie that I'd picked up at Hy-Vee.  They were ok, and a good complement to a healthy meal, but I think for the leftover salad I'm going to saute up some shrimp and add them to the salad for a one dish meal.  This was definitely one adventure in cooking I plan to repeat.