Garden Fuel (aka quinoa salad)

Yesterday, and for the past week, I've been a bit blah. I discovered that in all my enthusiasm to plant, the house had turned to absolute muck, so I've been doing a lot of indoor cleaning. Plus it's been rainy, humid, hot outside, and I need the skies to clear or a bit of wind or SOMETHING! DAMN YOU CENTRAL TEXAS WEATHER!

*breathe*

During the past week, I've been craving hamburgers, TONS of vegetables, and TONS of fruit. I'm not sure why that combo, but ah well... Then last night, the craving for vegetables got so bad that I started cooking at 11 PM with my boyfriend who was nice enough to help. OMG! The salad is amazing (or at least it's exactly what I was wanting which amounts to the same things), and there's loads of it - probably 2 gallons worth.

4 large fresh tomatoes, chunked
1 seeded, peeled cucumber, thinly sliced
2 stalks of celery, thinly sliced
1 can of artichokes, drained and loosely chopped
1 cup of hot pepper rings
1.5 cups of sliced green olives and pimentos
1/2 red onion, diced
2 lbs chicken breasts, marinated, grilled, and chopped
5 cooked cups of quinoa using homemade veggie broth
1/2 bottle of Texafrance Fat Free Lime-Basil Vinaigrette
3/4 cup of olive oil

Normally, I hate salads that I make (anyone else hate their own salads but love others?), but this one is seriously good. I'd probably add more vegetables if I did it again - maybe more tomatoes, cucumbers, and celery. Probably some fresh basil as well.

In other news, my "union ceremony" invitations arrived yesterday, and they look great! The pink is more purple than what I was expecting, but if I didn't have a certain expectation, I'd be thrilled. I'm still very happy, but you know... expectations will always let you down and all that.