Cranberry & Clementine Quinoa Salad

Christmas is over and I feel like I was so busy this year I didn’t have time to enjoy it. Mental note for next year: be more organised! Maybe I should start making Christmas cards now, that’s something I always run out of time to do; I’m sure that’s very idealistic thinking I can’t imagine I’ll actually start doing that. So after 24 days straight I took three whole days off and in those three days I spent entirely too much time thinking about this blog, whoops, there goes my "time off"! It took me a long time to get round to making this, I’m pretty sure I’ve had this idea stacked away in the back of my brain for about 3 months and I think the only reason it took me so long is because I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. I know that sounds crazy, why come up with the idea if you don’t think you’ll like it (I seem to be good at that) but for some reason I always think I don’t like Clementine’s but whenever I eat them I really enjoy them. As a kid I wasn’t a fan of the texture so the idea puts me off, my sister and I used to suck the juice out and leave the rest. I also really dislike going about my daily life and someone peeling a Clementine in the near vicinity of me, the smell really bothers me, not that I don’t like the smell it just bothers me a little. Is this making any sense? Anyway Clementine’s in salads are my new favourite thing, just staring at these pictures makes me want to go make a quinoa salad with Clementine’s in. I'm glad a friend told me that it sounds good because I found this ridiculously delicious, way more than I could have ever expected. This wasn’t actually the plan when I came up with this but after eating this I realised it’s the perfect salad for leftover meat, the mix of the cranberry and clementine would go to well with turkey or ham. It would also be a good serving salad for a party, cranberry sauce on the side. If you don't want to add meat and you want a little protein sunflower seeds are tasty with this (I forgot to photograph that bit I was too busy eating). Cranberry compote
115g/1 cup cranberries, fresh or frozen
5 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp orange juice
zest ½ orange
⅛ tsp ground cinnamon

Quinoa salad
⅓ cup quinoa + water for cooking
zest and juice of ½ lemon
1-2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 spring onions
A few handfuls of sultanas
Spinach
1 Clementine
Handful of sunflower seeds (optional)

First make the cranberry compote. Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and cook on a medium to low heat until the cranberries have burst and the mixture has slightly thickened then set aside.
Cook the quinoa as directed and leave in the saucepan to fluff up and cool slightly. Once the quinoa has cooked add the lemon juice, zest and olive oil and season well. Add sliced spring onions and some sultanas and mix until evenly distributed. Put the quinoa mixture on a bed of spinach and add clementine’s and some cranberry compote on top, add sunflower seeds if desired and you can top with leftover meats from Christmas dinner.