Blue Cheese, Walnut & Quinoa Chopped Salad

You know when you go through eating phases? Where you seem to eat a derivative of the same ingredients over and over for a while til you somehow switch to something new?

For example, I recently had a chicken phase. I had to eat chicken everyday. My favorite was a whole roasted chicken. I would eat the wings, my husband would eat the legs, and then we would use the breast meat in sandwiches, salads, and pastas. And when we were almost out of chicken (usually within a couple of days), I would get chicken anxiety, and I would run to the store and buy more chicken. Perhaps chicken legs or chicken breasts, but it had to be chicken. Nothing else was acceptable.

Now, I am in a salad phase. But not just any salad. Nope, that would be far to easy. It's got to be a salad with blue cheese and walnuts. Somehow, the richness of the cheese and the crunch of walnuts has made salads irresistible. And even though my pantry and fridge are stocked with tons of great ingredients, I have to run to the store to buy more stuff to make some kind of blue cheese and walnut salad. Go figure.

Anyways, today's salad was definitely one for the records. It was a chopped salad of sorts with quinoa and what else? Blue cheese and walnuts. Hope you love it as much as I do (perhaps so much that you will be running to recreate this over and over).

Blue Cheese, Walnut & Quinoa Chopped Salad

Serves 4

1 pint Grape Tomatoes, whole

1 Long English Cucumber, cut into 1/2 inch dice

2 Sweet Bell Peppers (red, orange or yellow), cut into 1/2 inch dice)

2 Shallots, chopped

1/2 cup Blue Cheese

1/2 cup Walnuts Halves, chopped into large pieces

2 cups Cooked Quinoa, cooled

2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

3 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Salt and Fresh Black Pepper to taste

In a large bowl, toss together tomatoes, cucumber, peppers, shallots, vinegar and olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. For one serving, place a 1/2 cup quinoa in a bowl, top with a quarter of the veggie mixture making sure that you drizzle with some of the dressing. Top with crumbled blue cheese and walnuts.