Wild Rice Salad with Dried Blueberries & Apples

This recipe comes from www.runningroom.com recipe of the month. As always, I kind of follow the recipe but I like to change it a little bit. This time I had two changes. First, the original recipe called for green onions but unfortunately when I was at Freshco, they were out of green onion. Apparently they just received a shipment but the stock boy was too busy stocking stuff to go check for me... The Second change was adding in Fried Paneer. Paneer isn't the best tasting cheese on it's own but when it's fried in butter and garlic salt it's amazing! I normally use a goat cheese paneer but Freshco only had cow's milk paneer. It's still pretty good not quite the same. Here's a picture with what the Salad looked like at the end.



What does the salad taste like? The base salad has kind of a licorice flavor flavor so make sure you like licorice before making this salad (The licorice flavor comes from the tarragon). The Fried Paneer adds a bit of Saltiness to it.

Ingredients (Dressing):
2 - Tbsp Orange Juice
2 - Tsp Balsamic Vinegar
1 - Tsp Dijon Mustard
1 - Tsp Maple Syrup
1/2 - Tsp Paprika
2 - Cloves Minced Fresh Garlic

Ingredients (Salad):
1 - Cup Wild Rice Blend
1/2 - Cup Dried Blueberries
1/2 - Cup Roasted Pumpkin Seeds (unsalted)
1/2 - Cup Roughly Chopped Parsley
1/4 - Cup Roughly Chopped Tarragon
2 - Tbsp Chopped Mint
1 - Apple, Cored and Diced
Salt and Pepper
Missing: 1/4 - Cup Green Onion

(Regular Mustard Shown Here instead of Dijon - I found the Dijon after I started cooking)

Directions:
Whisk together Orange Juice, Balsamic Vinegar, Dijon Mustard, Maple Syrup, Paprika and Garlic

Cook rice according to package direction and then let cool. Because of the timing of the recipe, I ended up putting the rice in the freezer to cool it faster.

Pour the Dried Blueberries into the bowl

Pour in the Pumpkin Seeds

Pour in the Parsley

Pour in the Tarragon

Pour in the Mint

Core and Chop the Apple into bite size pieces

Add in Salt and Pepper

Mix everything in the bowl together

Here's a picture of the Salad and Dressing, now add the Rice and Dressing to the Salad

This is what it looks like all mixed together



Put into bowls



Cut the Paneer up into slices

Fry the Paneer with Butter and Garlic Salt. It only takes a couple minutes a side, then chop into pieces and throw it on top of the Salad

Enjoy!