Written by Annalisa

* The reason I haven’t put definite amounts on various ingredients is that there is no right or wrong amount but you can just alter this according to what you have:
*

* 200g quinoa
* 1pt of low salt stock
* Juice of two limes
* fresh thyme (a handful of the leaves, stripped off the stem)
* cloves of chopped garlic (I used a teaspoon of ready chopped garlic cos i am lazy)
* olive oil
* onion (one)
* courgettes (two)
* few fresh tomatoes
* pitted olives

Chop the onion and saute it in a bit of the olive oil, add chopped courgette. I chop it quite fine so it only needs a flash-fry. Put to one side. Boil water and make one pint of low salt stock. Put the quinoa in a wide lidded frying pan or saucepan, pour over stock, bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes. Then switch off heat, put lid on and leave to absorb excess liquid. It’s really important you leave it to absorb the excess liquid (are you listening Charlotte?) as otherwise you will end up with a wet soppy mess. It’s also really important to use exactly the amount of quinoa to liquid stated for the same reason.

In a separate bowl mix the lime, garlic, two tablespoons of olive oil and thyme leaves (you can used dried thyme if you don’t have fresh). When the quinoa has absorbed the stock, fork it into a bowl, pour over the lime mix and then add ingredients to taste. Finely chopped fresh tomatoes, chopped olives, the courgettes and onions etc. I also add avocado when I have it and you can also add bits of chicken/prawns for older children/adults.

The great thing is that it makes a good warm salad but theny you can chill it for eating the next day and if you don’t put meat or fish in (quinoa is anyway a good source of protein) you can even take it out in a lunch box.

Yum.