Nutty Wild Rice Salad.

I usually save recipe posts for my Feeding Little Foodies blog--but this was too good not to share (and besides, it's not baby food).

We finally got around to preparing a recipe found on a blog that my friend Asami introduced me to a few months ago called, Cooking With Trader Joe's. This fantastic foodie find is written by two women--Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati. They are self proclaimed lovers of food, cooking and Trader Joe’s. So, as far as I am concerned, they are my kind of ladies!

As anyone who really knows me knows, we pretty much exclusively shop at "TJ's". So, a blog that provides recipes with ingredients found strictly at Trader Joe's is a winner in our book. And, as luck had it, this recipe was definitely that!

Dean made it for us for lunch today and we can't wait for a refeast! The very simple recipe can be found at their blog, but I am also going to post it below with our minor modifications because what the heck, it was darn yummy. Thanks, Deana and Wona! You'll find our before and after pictures above--hope we made you proud . . .

Nutty Wild Rice Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 (16 oz) pkg fully cooked Wild Rice
• 2-3 cups pre-cooked Just Chicken (or cook your own)
• 1 1/2 cups red grapes, halved
• 1 cup roasted cashews, whole or pieces
• 1 (8 oz) can sliced water chestnuts (WE OMITTED because we don't like them--yuck!)
• 2-3 stems green onion, chopped

Dressing:

• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbsp lemon juice (WE USED LIME because that is what we had on hand)

Directions:

1. Open the package of wild rice and put the contents into a large bowl, breaking up the rice.
   
2. To the rice, add chicken, grapes, cashews, water chestnuts (omit!) and green onion. Stir to combine.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the olive oil and lemon (lime) juice. Pour over the salad and stir to distribute evenly.

*This can be served warm or cold.
**Preparation time is 10 minutes and it serves 4.