Working lunch

I'm back! And I intend to stay back. I have a very long draft post about the wedding cake I made for my friend's wedding in September still to put up (need to add some recipes and pictures to it), but in the meantime, I'm here and I have things to write and recipes to note down.

This recipe was inspired, oddly enough, by something I ate at Seder in Israel this year. If you're Jewish you'll probably be surprised to hear that Pesach inspired any new recipe ideas, but in fact (and perhaps this tells you all you need to know about the rest of the Seder meal) the nicest thing I ate at Seder was a salad made of parsley and seeds. I had never really thought of parsley as a major salad ingredient before - usually it's more of a garnish, or something to put in soups - but then I remembered tabbouleh, which also uses parsley as its main ingredient, and this salad came together in my head.

The following can obviously be adapted to suit your tastes, but the quantities below have been making me 3 lunches, and it is quick to make, extremely filling, healthy and really delicious. Even Blondini said that parsley had never tasted so good. Only my grandpa, who has often declared his love for all food except parsley, may refuse to eat this salad.

Quinoa and parsley salad

(Makes 3 portions)

150g dry quinoa

100g flat leaf parsley (large bunch)

4 or 5 spring onions

Around 30 walnut halves

Juice of half a lemon

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

Put the quinoa in a saucepan with 14 fl oz water and salt (the water should be double the volume of the quinoa) and boil until all the water is absorbed.

Chop the parsley very finely. Get rid of the green ends of the spring onions and finely slice them. Chop the walnuts into small bits.

In a glass, mix the lemon juice, a few drops of olive oil and a good slug of balsamic vinegar (or as you prefer) with salt and pepper. When the quinoa is cool, toss all the ingredients together in a bowl with the dressing. Keep it in the fridge for lunches throughout the week, or eat it all immediately!

If you like a fruity kick to your salad I think dried cranberries would go very well here.