Quinoa Fruit Salad

Ive decided to start posting recipes I make up so that I can pin them on Pinterest and have a online recipe book of sorts instead of a million random pages of handwritten recipes floating around. I made this salad just a few minutes ago and it was better than I expected. I have been watching Chef Brad on BYU TV and thought I would play around with food the way he does. It is really healthy and like I said surprisingly tasty too.

          Ingredients:
2 cups cooked quinoa
1.5 cups brown rice
1 can 20 oz no sugar added pineapple chunks, fluid reserved
1 apple cubed
1 pear cubed
1 cup chopped parsley
1 handful craisins or other small dried fruit (for color and texture)
 bananas chopped
unsweetened shredded coconut

        for the dressing:
the reserved liquid from canned pinapple
1 cup coconut milk
1/3 cup agave nectar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons oil, (I used Barleans Flax oil, but olive could work too)

In a large bowl combine the quinoa, brown rice, drained pineapple, apple, pear and parsley.

In a blender or a bowl with a whisk combine the pineapple juice, coconut milk, agave, oil and cinnamon. Blend up well and pour over the combined salad ingredients.

To serve add sliced banana and shredded coconut into each serving and enjoy!

If you are not familiar with quinoa you cook it just like rice, 2 cups water to 1 cup rice. I added some coconut oil and salt to mine before bringing it to a boil. Bring to a boil, cover and turn down to low and simmer until all the water is adsorbed, its about 10-15 minutes.

I used the brown rice because we already had some in our refrigerator but you can feel free to experiment with any other precooked grain or white bean.

 On a different note I know that most of you look at my blog to see pictures of the kiddos. They are really good to each other. J likes to help out (that's normal for him). R likes to watch her big bro.
These pictures are really funny because several times J has asked to feed R. I finally let him try because I thought it might solve his interest when he found out it didn't work for him.

You can see how much she liked it. And look at his face... to cute.