The Online Photographer

[Misunderstanding Avoidance Dept.: Intended as

HUMOR!

Didn't actually make the recipe. Just imagining
how it would most likely go for me if I tried.
You can skim the recipe part if you wish. —Mike]

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Quinoa and Broccoli Spoon Salad from the NY Times

This easy chopped salad fits loads of texture and flavor onto a spoon by combining finely chopped raw broccoli with chewy dried cranberries, crunchy pecans, fluffy quinoa and chunks of sharp Cheddar cheese. The mixture is tossed in a punchy mustard vinaigrette that soaks into the florets, only getting better as it sits.

Prep Time: 30 minutes [but see below]

Yield: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

• Kosher salt
• 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
• 1 lemon
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 large bunch broccoli (about 1½ pounds)
• 1 medium tart and crisp apple
• 4 ounces sharp Cheddar
• ¾ cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped
• ½ cup dried cranberries

Preparation

Step 1
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil on high and season aggressively with salt. Add the quinoa, then reduce the heat to maintain a simmer; cook until plump and tender, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a fine-mesh sieve; rinse with cool water and drain well.

Step 2
While the quinoa cooks, finely grate the zest of the lemon into a large bowl then cut the lemon in half. Add the olive oil, mustard, honey and apple cider vinegar, plus the juice of ½ lemon; whisk together. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Step 3
Peel the stem of the broccoli and trim off the dry end. Finely chop the entire broccoli and add to the dressing. Core the apple then finely chop the apple and the cheese; add to the broccoli and toss to combine.

Step 4
Add the cooked quinoa, nuts and cranberries and toss to combine. Taste and add more salt, pepper and lemon juice, as needed. Store, refrigerated, for up to 3 days.

Single bachelor's (SB's) first reaction: SB doesn't eat cheese. (This is a "position," meaning, sometimes I do eat cheese, I just disapprove of myself doing it.) And, raw broccoli?! I think not, having stood directly behind Ashley N. Titled at the grocery story the other day as she trawled through every single head of broccoli on her way to finding The One. But then, I find the first featured comment by Sue, from two years ago, which reads:

"Although this salad sounds great (with the exception of the cheddar, which I cannot eat) raw broccoli is not appealing. I always briefly parboil chopped broccoli then plunge in ice water to stop the cooking if I plan to use it in a salad. Not only does this improve the flavor, it brightens the color to a very pretty and palatable bright green."

SB identifies with two-years-ago Sue. Crisis averted; forge on. Edit cheese, blanche broccoli.

End of published clues in NY Times. Leg up: Already know what "quinoa" is, and even how to pronounce it (KEEN-wah). This forecasts streamlined efficiency finding it at the grocery store, as it eliminates blank-faced employees staring at you as you plead for the location of "kwin-oh-ah." Also, already know what "zest of the lemon" means. And the decision to substitute salt for things like "Kosher salt" and "sea salt" and "pink salt" is already a standing policy. On the other hand: pro'ly gonna hafta figure out what "toasted" means with respect to pecans. I would not know a toasted pecan from a cockroach carcass.

SB actual Prep Time and result

Google what the hell "parboiled" means: 4 minutes. Attempt to guess what "briefly" means in respect to parboiling, before giving up: 1 minute. Total: 5 minutes

Decide to give up on "toasted pecans" question and just settle for pecans: 0 minutes

Drive to Wegman's (nearest good grocery store): 30 minutes

Wander around semi-lost, intermittently waylaying swiftly passing employees for help while slowly gathering ingredients. Add checkout time, including long wait for stout but energetic woman to bag own groceries for family of 16, and game, but lame, joke, which does not bestir vaguely cute young checkout girl with her brain on "idle" from her torpor: 30 minutes

Drive home: an unpleasant 30 minutes, fighting drowsiness. Did you know sleepiness behind the wheel is as dangerous as drunkenness?

Meditate on phrase "season aggressively with salt": ongoing (still—I mean, till right now). End up amusing self but scaring dog.

"Peel the stem of the broccoli"? YouTube, 10 minutes, and got flustered in the process, which I shouldn't have, but I'm tired.

Finding second large pot in which to parboil broccoli, used to "plunge in icewater" as per Sue, except my icemaker hasn't worked since 2016 and I forgot to buy ice at the store, so we go with cold water from the tap: 5 minutes

Inscrutable sentence: "Taste and add more salt, pepper and lemon juice, as needed. Store, refrigerated, for up to 3 days." They say that as if "taste" and "add more salt, pepper, and lemon juice as needed," are connected; not for me. I don't know how anything is supposed to taste. In fact, I taste poorly; I mean my taste buds and their connection to my brain don't physically work very well. I also come to and realize, after a momentary brain freeze-up, that "storing refrigerated for up to 3 days" is not part of the recipe, but that I can probably eat some of the salad right after it's finished; it means to store whatever you don't eat. Think to self (which is how I think): maybe your brain is kinda on idle, too, smartass.

Conclude preparation of salad + cleanup: 20 minutes

Total prep time: 2 hours, 10 minutes (433.333% of published estimate)

Cost: $37 (including gasoline a.k.a. petrol)

Wastage: most of a jar of Dijon mustard which I do not need and will never use again, most of a container of honey in a plastic container shaped like a bear, most of a bag of dried cranberries, almost all of a bottle of apple cider vinegar which will sit in the door of the fridge for the next 9 years, because, in a flurry of food safety virtuousness, I threw away the one which had been there for the last 9 years and bought a new one for this project. On the good side, SB will actually likely consume the leftover half lemon, pecans, and quinoa. And actually, dried cranberries taste pretty good in salads.

Result: Won't really like it. But it'll be okay. Looks like a mix they used to sell at the deli counter called "Detox Salad" which was hastily discontinued right after the deli counter employees detected that I liked it. Other things that have been discontinued just recently (unlike some of the above, this is all totally 100% true): the food my dog has been eating since we moved here in 2015; the one salad dressing I've ever found that I actually like, and had been buying for years and years; my favorite soap; and the packaged TastyBite "Spinach Dal" I used to eat with rice and chickpeas at least once a week. Discontinuation is the downside of packaged food: everything you find that you like will one day abruptly vanish forever, leaving you adrift and rudderless. The discontinuation of my salad dressing is actually more of a crisis, albeit a tiny one, than I can appropriately convey in words. I try not to eat candy, but I still mourn the discontinuation of my favorite-ever candy 30 years ago now; I will never taste it again from now until I shuffle off to Buffalo, and that saddens me with a now-calcified forever sort of sadness.

Remaining question: Will sad-sack SB eat the rest of the Quinoa and Broccoli Spoon Salad, flagrantly expensive in terms of time, dollars, mental energy, and self-endangerment, or will it reside in the refrigerator, sometimes referred to as "the Rotter," for the next four weeks or until it grows mold and we scrape it into the garbage?

Only time shall tell, only time shall tell.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2025 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Dave G.: "A few random thoughts. The recipe you tried was just some raw and partially cooked veggies, in a Dijon mustard dressing. Don’t overthink this. Pick the fruits, veggies, seeds, nuts, and whatever other solid ingredients that you like, mix them together, and douse in dressing, also of your choice. Feel completely free to use commercial or homemade dressing, and salt, pepper and season to your taste. If mustard is not to your liking, there is no reason to put it in your dressing. Sneak up on the salt. It can always be added, but is impossible to remove.

"The parboil thing is just meant to tenderize and brighten the broccoli, without turning it mush. If you like it raw, that is fine too. Like everything else, texture is a personal preference.

"As for salt—Kosher does not equal table salt, although they are both sodium chloride, and neither are 'pink' salt, which until recently, has referred to either a combination of sodium nitrite + sodium chloride, or sodium nitrite + sodium nitrate + sodium chloride. That pink salt is used for curing meat (ham, bacon, corned beef, etc.) and making sausage, and has been falling out of favor due to health consequences if over-consumed. Today, pink salt may also refer to the mined salt from Pakistan with a pink hue due to trace elements. As for Kosher salt, the large flat grain makes it far less dense than common table salt. The flat grain sticks better to the surface of food, and I find myself using less of it.

"Your no-longer-made dressing note touched a nerve. I’m fond of 1000 Island dressing, but tend to avoid it, due to being high in fat and calorically dense. A few years back, Bolthouse started selling a Greek-yogurt-based 1000 Island that I thought was great. Of course, as soon as I was hooked, they pulled the plug and I haven’t found anything equivalent. However, a recent Googlefoo pointed me towards a couple recipes. Consider trying the equivalent exercise for your lost favorite. Likely someone has developed a clone.

"As for salads, I came to love traditional Greek salads, when traveling in Greece a couple of years back. Sliced cucumbers (I like the thin-skinned ‘hothouse’ type) and tomatoes, slivered red onion, fresh feta cheese (the stuff in brine), a couple tablespoons of good quality EVO, and a pinch of Kosher salt and oregano. For acid, you can either go with wine or apple vinegar, or my favorite, which is balsamic."

Mike replies: I've tried twice so far to make my own miso-ginger dressing. Pretty bad fails both times...they tasted nothing like Organicville's.

JimF: "I watch some cooking shows on PBS but never cook any of it. If you notice most recipes have 20 or more ingredients. On TV they are all pre-measured in cute little containers and dumped in in quick succession. Getting all the stuff out (if you have it), measuring it, and cleaning all those containers takes a lot of time. That's why sous-chef is a full time job."

Mike replies: That's funny. I started watching a video series called something like "Fifteen Minute Meals," and the idea was the same. The entire counter covered in pre-measured ingredients in various containers—minimum three dozen of them, quite possibly more—and when the timer started, the chef started whirling like a dervish, with complex timings, choreographed maneuvers, and specialized skills deployed left and right. Everything he needed was laid out strategically for him. He was cooking three separate complicated dishes concurrently. All the while, he kept up a patter about where the ingredients could be procured, one thing from an Asian grocery, another from a website, a third that he got directly from an organic farmer, etc. I estimated the prep, for me, at no less than a solid eight-hour day, at least an hour for cleanup, and the cooking—well, the cooking was beyond my abilities, full stop. Fifteen-minute meal my eye!

What I need is a remedial WFPB cookbook for clueless single non-cooks, starting with "Peanut-Butter Sandwich: Find a kind of bread with whole wheat as the first ingredient and two or less grams of sugar per slice. Find a brand of peanut butter that consists of only peanuts and no added sugar. Smear the peanut butter on the bread with a table knife." Then move on to recipe No. 2.

I'm only partly kidding.

Joe Kashi: "Talk about synchronicity! I opened today's post while eating the day-old remnants of that very same quinoa-broccoli salad. Actually, I like it, as did our two German Shepherds, who competed licking the bowl. We also eliminated the sharp cheddar and a lot of the salt but substituted skim-milk Italian Parmesan. I did wonder if perhaps adding some sharp cheddar might help the flavor."

James Weekes: "Sounds like you avoided a monumentally bland meal. You need to lay in some spices. I recommend Penzey's."

Mike replies: You'll laugh, but I really can't tell much difference between spices. Whenever I cook something I add spices because I know they're good for you (concentrated dried plants) but I don't really know what to add so I usually just pick a few at random and add what feels like a reasonable amount to the dish.

Ed Hawco: "Oh, Mike. In the software world we refer to people like you as an 'edge case' in that cooking and eating are not high on your list of interests or priorities. Most recipes are written on the assumption that the reader has a certain mid-level set of skills and corresponding experience and interest in the kitchen.

"That said, I will add that I have never seen a recipe that did not need a total re-write. I say this as someone who has been writing instructions professionally for more than than 30 years. Every online recipe I use gets sent into my recipe app ('Paprika'; highly recommended), where I can rewrite it to my liking, which I do 100% of the time. I often think I should give up on software and offer myself as a professional recipe re-writer, but there’s the small problem of needing to make a living.

"You did well substituting ice water with cold tap water—99.9% of recipes involving par-boiling of vegetables (referred to as 'blanching' by pros) call for an ice water bath, which is completely unnecessary. It’s one of those self-perpetuating tropes that started off in a professional kitchen where of course they have endless supplies of ice on hand at all times. They filter down to home cooking where the recipe writers (food bloggers in particular, who are the worst) just parrot the received wisdom without ever questioning it. I blanch vegetables all the time—broccoli in particular—and I never use ice water.

"Two other things for anyone else who might want to give this recipe a crack (or if you want to try again); generally one minute in the boiling water is sufficient for broccoli. Beyond that and you’re not blanching it; you’re cooking it. One minute gives you the cleaning you want, tender florets, crisp almost-raw stems, and a nice green color. Pro-tip: after draining, give each floret a flick to get some of the water out of the bushy part. It will stay good in the fridge (in a container) for a few days.

"Toasting nuts can be done in a toaster oven (keep an eye on it!) or in a dry medium-hot skillet, where you keep the nuts moving for a couple of minutes until they are a bit darker, smell nice, and are not burned. (Do not turn away from the pan!)"

Mike replies: It's actually high on my list of priorities to eat somewhat self-defensively, because I have had such poor food instincts all of my life. I have only partly succeeded. The problem, and you may quote me, is that WFPB (whole food plant-based) is a good diet, but not a very good menu.

Richard John Tugwell: "I find that following 'recipes' rarely leads anywhere useful. Learn how to prepare and cook food, make your own selection, adapt according to season, availablity and cost. Eat. Read good food writers, rather than recipes books. The best food writers are good at giving you ideas, rather than recipes. For example, Nigel Slater in the UK Guardian, or Claudia Roden. But detailed ingredients and instructions? Never worked for me."

Dave B: "I’m sorry if this is OT but this was the best post you have ever written. It (and the comments) took me half an hour to read thru my laughing and tear-drying. More of these and fewer on photography please. This is exactly what the world needs these days. Thank You!"

Mike replies: I'm glad you liked it!