Brown-rice Salad with Spinach, Tomatoes and Grilled Chicken

After weeks of too-cold weather and hearty wintery foods, this lighter salad (and the much warmer temperatures that occured the day we had it) was a pleasant and welcomed change. Found in the January issue of Everyday Food, it may have seemed almost better suited for the summer time, but with the additional of some grilled chicken, it really was a substantial (and delicious) dinner that we quite enjoyed.

I did reduce the amount of rice by a half cup and added extra spinach, but left most everything else the same. We topped it with two grilled chicken breasts (but I only photographed it with one, so you could see the other elelments.) The chicken really added to this salad- I think it would've been a little boring with out it (and that's coming from someone who really isn't that crazy about chicken a lot of the time,) and the red-wine vinaigrette with its subtle hint of dill was a perfect compliment. As a dinner salad, with the additional of the chicken, this fed 2 adults and 1 toddler perfectly, although as originally written, I believe it is meant as a side dish to serve 4.

adapted slightly from Everyday Food magazine, January issue

for the dressing:

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp red-wine vinegar

2 tbsp chopped fresh dill (I only had about a 1 1/2 tbsp to put in mine)

1 clove garlic, minced

1/4 tsp sugar

1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice (room temperature)

1 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded and cut into 1/2 in. by 1 1/2 in. pieces

3 cups baby spinach

1 cup grape tomatoes, halved

seas salt and fresh ground pepper

2 breasts of chicken, pounded thin and seasoned with salt and pepper

Whisk together the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl. Set aside.

Add rice, cucucmber, spianch and tomatoes to serving bowl. Drizzle with dressing, season generously with salt and pepper and toss to combine.

Grill chicken until no longer pink inside. Allow to cool slightly, slice and top salad.