Rice Salad in the Sunshine

What a week we have had weather-wise!  Glorious non-stop sunshine and it isn't ending any time soon... We have had a mammoth afternoon of planting flowers and herbs again (in our DIY herb garden I posted about a couple of weeks ago!) and are about to enjoy a yummy bbq dinner on the balcony :-)

In addition to the sunshine, I also finally created a Facebook page for Sew Lah Tea Dough - after 4 months live to the world I thought it was about time.  I would love for you to 'Like' my page and follow me there.  Click here to find me, and get post updates right to your news feed!

Inspired by the sunshine this week I got to work making a cold salad for a weeknight dinner.  We had made it once before, last year some time but I changed up the ingredients a little this week and got it ready to go.  As I have mentioned before, coming home from teaching piano late in the evening doesn't always mean for much fun getting dinner prepared and eaten before I fall asleep!  This was a perfect side dish that I could prepare in the daytime and it would be ready to eat all week long.

Added bonus... my husband LOVES it!  So we'll definitely be making it again really soon, like this week again maybe!!

Here is the recipe with the ingredients I chose to add in and the amounts of each.  But the best thing about this recipe is how interchangeable it all is.  If you like nuts a lot, add more... if you don't like cranberries but you do like raisins, then sure, why not - switch it up!!


INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 cups brown or white and wild rice blend
2 cups water
1/2 teaspoon salt

Here are the extras I added:

1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion (last year we did big chunks and these weren't so nice to eat whole, this time the finely chopped pieces were so much nicer!)
1/4 cup green onion (yes, that's what they call spring onion!) - this was about 2 sprigs out of the bunch
1/8 cup finely chopped cilantro
1/2 cup sliced and blanched almonds - toasted first for about 2 minutes
1/2 cup cooked and cooled sweetcorn
50g feta cheese, just less than 1/2 cup of small cubes

For the dressing:

1/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp honey

METHOD:

1.  Bring the water to a boil in a large saucepan.

2.  Add rice and salt.

3.  Bring down to a gentle simmer, cover with the lid and cook for 18 minutes (or as your rice packaging suggests)

4.  Fluff with a fork and leave to cool.

5.  Refrigerate if not using right away.  I kept mine in the fridge until that evening when I got home from work and threw in the additional flavours and ingredients.

6.  Mix all of the "extras" into the cooled rice.

7.  Combine dressing ingredients and stir into rice mix.

8.  Scoop and serve!! Enjoy!

This recipe made 5 cups of salad.  Perhaps enough for 6-8 servings, depending on how hungry you are (and for us, that definitely meant 6 not 8...oops!)

I would love to know what flavours or ingredients you prefer, or what additions you would make to this!  Drop me a comment and let me know :-)

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