Quinoa Salad and Zojirushi Umami Micom Rice Cooker Giveaway

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healthy quinoa salad

I have a few things to share with you:

1)  An easy and very healthy quinoa salad recipe!

2)  A very exciting giveaway from Zojirushi!

3)  I’m going to camp!

This weekend I will be heading to the mountains to attend CampBlogaway (a “Boot camp for Food and Recipe Bloggers”) and Zojirushi is sponsoring me!!   I’m one lucky girl!!  Zojirushi is a well known and respected Japanese company.  They offer a wide variety of quality products such as rice cookers, water boilers, bread machines, and vacuum bottles.  We have been using Zojirushi for years and love it.  The rice cooker is dependable and always makes a perfect pot of fluffy rice and I’m a big fan of the Water Boiler and Warmer. In fact that’s what I asked for my birthday about 7 years ago and the same one still sits in my kitchen ready to dispense hot water for tea or hot cocoa.

We were very excited to try out the new Zojirush Umami Micom Rice Cooker.   This is the newest addition to their rice cooker family and it’s a great appliance to have in every kitchen.  It’s stylish, sleek, compact and the Micom Fuzzy technology makes cooking in it fool proof.  Here’s all the settings it can do:  white, umami, mixed, sushi, porridge, sweet, brown, GABA brown, rinse-free and quick cook rice.  There’s also a slow cook feature!  Seriously….a rice cooker that can also slow cook? I’m amazed at all this little rice cooker can do!  Derrick loves using the umami rice setting which really does enhance the flavor of the rice.  Umami is the 5th basic taste:  savoriness and I often wonder what took so long to recognize this crucial 5th taste!  I like preparing porridge in the Umami rice cooker – it’s a quick and easy one pot meal.  We’re so thrilled that one of our readers will be a lucky winner of a new Zojirushi Umami Micom Rice Cooker, retailed at $273.  Good luck!!

zojirushi umami micom rice cooker

In the meantime, I want to share with you a recipe that I’ve made numerous times in this trusty rice cooker…quinoa salad.

Have you heard of quinoa?  It looks like a grain but not really a grain.  It’s actually more closely related to beets and spinach.  Am I confusing you yet?  Anyhow the point is it’s really good for you.  Quinoa is high in protein, fiber, magnesium and iron.   It’s also gluten free and the texture is very similar to rice or couscous.

I’ve been experimenting with quinoa and have only prepared it in my rice cooker and I love it.  There’s no pot to watch or timer to set.  I rinse the quinoa, put in my rice cooker, add water and then prep my other ingredients while it’s cooking.  It couldn’t have been any easier.  This salad is packed with good for you ingredients and is a healthy addition to any meal or it can stand on it’s own as a meal itself.  This salad is light and refreshing.  The salty feta cheese is balanced with the sweet peas, juicy tomatoes and slightly tart dried cranberries.  The cucumbers add some crunch to the salad.   I like my quinoa on the al dente side and cooking it on quick cook gives me just the right texture every time.

quinoa salad collage

Look at how fluffy the quinoa turned out and the vegetables are so fresh and bright!

 

 

Quinoa Salad

Prep:  10 mins  Cook time:  30   Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

½ C quinoa

2/3 C water

½ C fresh or frozen (thawed) peas

½ C cucumbers, quartered and then sliced

½ C dried cranberries

½ C cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half  (I used mini Heirloom tomatoes – but those aren’t always easy to find)

¼ C crumbled feta cheese

Vinaigrette ingredients:

2 Tbs olive oil

1 Tbs red wine vinegar

1 tsp lemon zest

1 Tbs lemon juice

½ tsp sea salt

1 Tbs finely chopped shallots

black pepper to taste

Directions:

  • Put quinoa in a fine mesh sieve and rinse under cold running water for a few seconds.
  • Put quinoa into the rice cooker and add water.  Cook on Quick Cook.
  • While the quinoa is cooking (about 30 minutes), prep the other ingredients.
  • Whisk all of the vinaigrette ingredients together in a small bowl.  Add a couple of grinds of fresh black pepper to taste.
  • Once quinoa is done cooking, use the “rice scooper” to fluff the quinoa.  Put the quinoa into a large bowl and let cool for about 5 minutes.  Add the peas, cucumbers, cranberries, and feta.  Pour vinaigrette over salad,  toss and serve immediate or you can refrigerate and eat it cold or at room temperature.

 Enjoy!!

 

 

quinoa salad

Here’s how to enter the giveaway for the Zojirushi Umami Micom Rice Cooker (5.5 C)

Leave a comment telling us what is your favorite rice dish.

Bonus entries:

  1. Check out the Zojirushi website and tell us what specific product you would like to add to your kitchen.
  2. Join Kitchen Runway on Facebook
  3. Follow Kitchen Runway on Twitter
  4. Tweet this giveaway on Twitter: “I just entered to win a Zojirushi Umami Rice Cooker from @kitchenrunway. You can enter here: http://tinyurl.com/3v84lbs”

That’s 5 entries into the giveaway. If you already do one of the above, it will count as an extra entry (just leave a comment below to let us know). Remember to post a separate comment for each entry.

The Details:

Thank you everyone for participating in the giveaway!  I loved seeing all of your favorite rice dishes!  They all made me hungry!  A big CONGRATULATIONS to Cathy Reuter!!  We hope you enjoy your beautiful rice cooker and can’t wait to hear about your delicious jasmine rice and quinoa dishes!

This giveaway is open to US residents only. (sorry international readers…) The giveaway will end on Monday, May 9th, 2011 at 11:59pm PST. The winner will be randomly drawn and will be notified by email. If the winner does not claim their prize within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen and the prize will be forfeited.

Disclaimer: This giveaway is provided to you by Zojirushi. The views and opinions expressed on Kitchen Runway are my own and based upon my personal experiences with Zojirushi. I was given the product  free of charge; however, I was not monetarily compensated for a positive review or giveaway.

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129 comments

  2. Lara says:

    My favorite rice dish is kheer for sure! There’s nothing like digging into a bowl of cool, creamy kheer after a hot n’ spicy Indian feast 🙂
    thanks for the giveaway!

  3. Tina says:

    Growing up with a Thai mother the main staple in our house was Jasmine rice with anything my mom made over it. My favorite dish when my dad cooked was chicken cream of mushroom over rice and when my mom cooked it was spicy greenbeans and beef over rice.

  5. Tracy Wong says:

    I just bought a Zojirushi hot water dispenser. I want their thermal cooker or the umami rice cooker (or any of their rice cookers, really).

  7. Laura says:

    I would like a Zojirushi Micom Rice Cooker & Warmer (NS-VGC05 model). It has a cute appearance and it’s small enough for my uses at 3 cups and it also has a cake option already!

  9. Ha Thien says:

    My favorite rice dish is the Sticky Rice with Chinese Sausage, Chicken and Dried Shrimp. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a variation of this recipe:

    http://www.theravenouscouple.com/2009/10/xoi-man-sticky-rice-recipe-with-chinese-sausage-chicken-shrimp.html

    Instead of a steamer, you can use a rice cooker (my parents used their Zojirushi cooker in the past because it doesn’t burn the rice) and get the same fluffy, sticky rice.

    I want the Umami Micom Rice Cooker, please.

  13. amy says:

    i would like the indoor electric grill from zojirushi. my backyard is small, and we don’t have a bbq grill, this indoor electric grill looks good for grilling indoors.

  48. Yuri says:

    Favorite rice dish? Can’t decide: paella or japanese yakimeshi. I love both!
    Btw love your quinoa salad. I am always trying new things with it 🙂

  50. Yuri says:

    You got a panda following you on Twitter now 🙂 [I saw the giveaway link on Twitter via Nancy McDermott!]

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