Hearty Wild Rice Salad

This gorgeous girl is my little cousin Amy. She is visiting me in the big city and learning how to blog like a pro.  Amy already knows how to cook better than most girls twice her age. I am pretty sure that this is because her mom, Abir, is one of the best cooks alive, she taught me a great deal and I can’t resist eating four or five plates when I go to their house;  hence, my constant diet.  

Today we are going to teach a simple and hearty salad made with lots of delicious things that you never thought to put together.  It has some ingredients that are super foods and really healthy like baby kale and wild rice, and some sweet like the dried apricots, warm roasted Brussels sprouts and crunchy toasted pecans. Are you hungry yet??

1 Cup Wild Rice

1 ½ Cups Brussels Sprouts

¼ cup each Dried Cranberries and Dried Apricots

¼ Cup Chopped and Toasted Pecans

Garlic

¼ Onions

4 Chopped Green Onions

Baby Kale

Olive Oil

Fig Balsamic Vinegar
(Substitute with any balsamic if you aren’t fancy enough for fig)

Salt and Pepper

Wash the rice and boil in 4x the amount of water. I used 1 cup rice, 4 cups water. This will take about 45 minutes before the rice is done, you will know because each grain will explode, and you can see the lighter insides. Meanwhile, prepare the brussels sprouts, trim them if needed and cut the bigger ones into smaller pieces so that they are uniform in size. Toss with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can add some chopped onion and garlic if you roll like that.

While the brussels sprouts are roasting in the oven at about 350 degrees and the rice is boiling/exploding: this is a good time to get a tasty snack or to Martha Stewart it up and decorate paper cups for your birthday party that’s just around the corner.

Toast the pecans in a dry frying pan over medium heat. Chop the dried apricots and green onion. Make the dressing by mixing olive oil and double the vinegar, ¼ cup chopped onion and 4 big cloves of garlic.

Once you can see that the rice hass exploded, take out the brussels sprouts and let them cool. Strain any remaining water from the rice. Mix all the ingredients together, and add salt and pepper to taste. You might have to bare hand it and get wild rice salad up to your elbows but trust me, it’s worth it.

This recipe will make about six servings. Which is WAY too much for single-girl-San-Francisco and superfancy-chef-in-training, but we’ll have leftovers for life. I recommend this with broiled salmon or maybe some superfancy short ribs or maybe even by itself.