Couscous and Quinoa Salad

After moving into the new apartment, we stocked up with tons of food, but didn't really get anything for a cohesive meal.  We had some salmon, broccoli, tons of grains, chickpeas and misc frozen vegetables.  I combined our misc grains and frozen vegetables into a pretty good salad to go along with the fish and broccoli.  

Ingredients:

• equal parts of couscous, quinoa, and Kashi pilaf equalling about 1 cup, cooked
  
• 1/4 of a small onion, diced
  
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
  
• 1/2 cup of frozen peas
  
• 1/2 cup of frozen corn
  
• 1/2 cup of diced carrots
  
• 3/4 cup of chickpeas
  
• olive oil
  
• balsamic vinegar
  
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
  
• 1/4 cup of almonds (roughly chopped, but slivers would work well)
  
• salt, black pepper, chili powder
  
• dried cherries (optional)
  
• fresh parsley (optional)
  

I sauteed the garlic, onion, frozen peas and corn in a little olive oil (mostly to thaw the corn and peas and take the edge off the onion and garlic).  Once everything was thawed/cooked, I removed it from the heat and mixed this with the grains.  I added about a tablespoon more of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar (amount can be adjusted to how much you like vinegar), lemon juice, carrots, chick peas, and almonds.  A few grinds of black pepper, dash of chili powder, and salt to taste.  We didn't have any dried cherries or parsley, but that would have been a great addition.  I topped this with a little grated parmesan/romano cheese...feta would probably be really good too.  We ate this when it was warm (not hot, not cold)...basically I prepared this right before I cooked the salmon.

We the salad with steamed broccoli and pan-seared salmon.  I marinated the salmon for about 10 minutes in a very basic marinated (lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, paprika...basically the same as for the fish tacos, minus the cilantro) before cooking.  Pretty easy overall and good.