Apple Quinoa Salad

I am in love with this salad. I got it from my friend, Elise's, Healing Cuisine blog (this is a really good food blog, by the way).

Here is the recipe. I altered it a little from the original, to make it less expensive for me (i.e. buying dried mint leaves instead of using the fresh stuff, using an onion instead of a shallot because I always have onions on hand and hardly even know what a shallot is) and to feed more. Another thing I don't do is rinse the quinoa, like everybody else that I know seems to do:

1/4 cup raw, slivered almonds
2 cups quinoa
4 cups filtered water
2 Tbsp onion, diced
2 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp sea salt
Freshly ground pepper, to taste
4 Tbsp olive oil
1 Granny Smith apple, diced thin
1/4 cup dried peppermint leaves (in the herb section)

1.)  Bring 4 cups filtered water and quinoa to a boil in a medium saucepan. Cover and reduce heat to Low.  Simmer until quinoa is tender but still chewy, about 15 minutes. Let cool.

3.)  Whisk together onion, curry powder, and salt in a large bowl.  Season with pepper. Whisking constantly, stream in olive oil, whisking until dressing is emulsified.  Add quinoa, apple, mint, and nuts.  Mix well to combine.  Serve.

(If you feel like it, you can slice up part of the apple to make it look pretty, like I did.)