Brown Rice and Cranberry Salad

While in Melbourne visiting friends, we dropped past Ganache for, well, chocolate really, but given we'd missed lunch, I ordered a salad first.

What came out was a unique and surprisingly delicious brown rice salad with nuts, cranberries, fresh peas and legumes.

I loved every mouthful and thought it would make a great lunch for work so jotted down the key ingredients so I could try it out at home.

Thankfully, my attempt turned out well - maybe even better than the original.

Here's what I used...

Brown rice

Almonds

Hazelnuts

Pine nuts

Pipitas

Cranberries

Turkish barberries

Baby peas

Chives

Coriander

Mint
Basil

Macadamia nut oil (or EV olive oil)

Lemon juice

Salt

Pepper
Bay leaf for cooking rice

Cook the rice with a pinch of salt and a bay leaf or two in the water.
Meanwhile, soak cranberries and barberries in boiling water.
Roughly chop the almonds and hazelnuts.
Toast nuts and seeds in a dry frying pan then set aside in a large mixing bowl.
Add chopped herbs, frozen peas to the mixing bowl.
Drain berries and rice (remove bay leaf) and add to mixing bowl.
Add lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper.
Combine well.

Enjoy warm or cold.

Yum! This is my new favourite and makes for a delicious lunch or dinner. It's excellent with boiled eggs (from the lovely hens next door), haloumi or tofu.


Oh, in case you were wondering, I also had a piece of Hazelnut Fan Slice and a couple of handcrafted chocolates.