Swiss chard is here, my garden teeming with it in rainbow hues. Given my quinoa-centric state of mind, what better pairing can I dream up than the two together? It works!! A gentle saute of sliced chard stalks, plus the chopped leaves and lots of garlic make for an ideal quinoa partner, the grain being a blank canvas to which one can riff in many ways. Swiss chard also speaks to me of raisins and pine nuts, so they make an appearance here too, a warm side dish, a cooled down salad, a leftover to bring to work for lunch.

Let's start by cooking the quinoa. You can boil it like pasta in salted water and drain it when it blooms and softens, a little tail, the germ, emerging from each grain. Place the drained quinoa back into the cooking pot, cover with a clean tea towel and let it sit for 5 minutes. Fluff and serve. Another method for cooking quinoa is to cook one part quinoa to two parts water, covered, for 12 - 15 minutes, until done. Fluff, cover, let sit for 5 minutes, and serve. Both methods work well, so prepare your quinoa according to your preference.

When cooked quinoa is destined for a salad, it is a good idea to dry it out so that the grains remain separate. Thanks to Bob's Red Mill Cookbook for this important pointer. Spread your cooked quinoa onto a baking sheet to cool and dry. You can store cooked quinoa in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Now for the fun, where inspiration, flavour and texture arrive on the scene. Take a large bunch of Swiss chard, rainbow coloured, if possible. Wash the stalks and leaves and pat them dry delicately. It is OK if some water clings to the chard. Snip off the leaves and chop them coarsely. Set aside. Slice the stalks thinly. In a large pan, warm two teaspoons of olive oil and saute the sliced stalks until beginning to soften, about 10 minutes. Add in the chopped chard leaves and 2 - 3 plump cloves of crushed garlic. Cook until softened, tender and fragrant. The Swiss chard will have wilted and cooked down to a mere skeleton of its former, bulky self. Season with salt and pepper and a few gratings of whole nutmeg. Let the chard cool and add it to the cooked quinoa along with a handful of golden raisins and another handful of toasted pine nuts. You may want to dress the salad lightly with a lemony vinaigrette, or just some fruity olive oil and a splash of fresh lemon juice. Finish the salad off with a flourish of fresh herbs, whatever is fresh and abundant in your garden or market. Mint is awfully nice here as is Italian parsley or chives. If you cannot decide on one herb, use a combination. There is no right or wrong here, just the desires of your palate to follow.

Enjoy this delightful creation as a light lunch with a bowl of soup, with some flatbreads and cheese, or as a side to some protein. It keeps very well in the fridge for few days and will nourish your mind and body with its healthful goodness.

Can't get enough of quinoa? Read on:

It's summer time and the living is easy. Someone said that once. It makes sense to me. It's time to bask in the kaleidoscope of colours at the produce stands. And then time to come home and put together something to eat that is fresh and fast. I did just that. The blueberries were plump and tempting, a perfect mango beckoned with its heady perfume, firm stalks of corn awaited discovery. Long, thin beans, bold peppers, slim green onions, I found them all today and made this bright delight to enjoy with some grilled wild salmon.

Let's start with the quinoa and what one does with it. There are different techniques for cooking quinoa and I am going with this one from trusty Saveur magazine.

How to Cook Quinoa Perfectly
adapted from www.saveur.com

1 cup quinoa, rinsed well and drained; 1 tsp. salt

In a 4-litre pot, bring 6 cups of water and 1 tsp. salt to a boil. Add quinoa and simmer 12-15 minutes until tender and grains have bloomed. Remove from heat and drain quinoa in a fine mesh sieve. Set sieve back over empty pot, cover with a clean kitchen towel, and let rest 15 minutes. Serves 4 people.

Quinoa Salad

Next, if you would like to construct a summer salad, you need some vegetables. I used about a cup and a half each of fresh green beans, cut into small pieces, cherry tomatoes, quartered and fresh corn kernals. I cooked the green beans and the corn until tender and drained them well. Tossed them into the bowl of quinoa I had waiting on the side along with the tomatoes, seeds pressed out lightly, by the way. I toasted a cup of sliced almonds and included them in my creation along with about 6 green onions, sliced into small rounds and two jalapenos, diced, for a hit of heat. Fruit and quinoa get along beautifully and I was after some big time colour, so in went a mango, diced and about 3/4 cup of fresh blueberries. I made a simple dressing with almond oil, fresh lemon juice and the zest of that same lemon, adding salt and pepper, a bit of cayenne and a pinch of raw sugar to taste. The only thing missing was a big handful of fresh herbs from my garden, mint, chives and oregano, adding lush freshness and speckles of green.

My quinoa creation was a perky foil for the rich, delicate meat of the wild salmon, cutting the density of the fish with bursts of fruit and a friendly jolt of peppery heat. It is a salad I will play with and adapt all summer long, as the fruit season delivers its wares. I am looking forward to tender, young zucchini, diced and gently cooked. Corn will continue to appear and will get better as the summer progresses, as will peppers and beans. Parsley and dill, cilantro and thyme, all will play roles.

Keep your summer meals easy and fresh:

With a new book comes new ideas. Salad For Supper. Patricia Wells, inspirational cooking teacher and author, tantalizes with her new cookbook Salad As A Meal, a concept that speaks of ease, freshness, light meals, casual concoctions. Don't approach this with notions of a messy hodgepodge thrown into a salad bowl. No no no. Here we have lovely, gentle tossings of elegantly simple elements that work together to build a sum greater than its parts.

Then, there are the things that go with salad for supper, some gentle soups, homemade crackers, the wines we may like to enjoy. Salad As A Meal takes us by the hand and invites us inside Patricia Wells' charmed life in the south of France, enabling our participation in the creation of sun-drenched foods and easy living. Cookbooks like this promote the fullfillment of a fantasy, a portal to a kinder, gentler world where people sip wine and eat canapes under the canopy of an oak tree. While some elements of our own lives may differ, we can adapt the themes and menus to our own circumstances and get one step closer to creating our own happy retreats within our own homes.

So, which salad should I tell you about? Thai Beef? Potato Salad With Capers, Spring Onions and Mint? Pear, Blue Cheese, Fennnel, Endive and Salted Almond? Vietnamese Chicken and Green Papaya? Marinated Shrimp? You may have noticed that some of these creations are not particularly French, as are many of Patricia Wells' notable recpes. No matter. They are inspired and fresh, trademarks of Wells' casual, elegant style. The more I browse Salad As A Meal, the more enthralled I am with this book. Here is a salad that calls out to me:

Crab, Avocado and Quinoa Salad With Technicolour Tomatoes

3 cups water or stock; 1/2 tsp. kosher salt; 1 cup quinoa, well rinsed and drained; 2 bay leaves; 1 pound (2 cups) lump crabmeat, cooked; 1/4 cup minced fresh tarragon or Italian parsley; 1/2 cup minced fresh mint leaves; 1 large rip avocado, halved, pitted, peeled and cubed; 2 cups mixed red, yellow and green cherry or pear tomatoes, halved.

In a large saucepan, bring water or stock to a boil. Add salt, quinoa and bay leaves. Bring back to a boil and then reduce heat to low, cover the pan and simmer until the quinoa is tender and translucent, about 15 minutes. Drain and return quinoa to pan. Cover with a clean dish towel, replace the lid and let it sit for 10 minutes. Discard bay leaves and let quinoa cool.

Place cooled quinoa in a large, shallow bowl. Add crabmeat, tarragon, mint and avocado. Toss with a dressing of your choice. Patricia likes this Yogurt and Lemon Dressing:

Combine 1 tbsp. lemon zest and 1 tbsp. fine sea salt in a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder. Take 1/4 tsp. of this lemon salt and combine it with 1/2 cup plain low-fat yogurt and 2 tbsp. of fresh lemon juice. Shake well to blend. Adjust seasoning and add pepper if you like. Serve with quinoa salad.

Let your days be salad days: