Tunisia Meets Provence Salad

There's always at least one reader's recipe in Vegetarian Times, and they usually sound really good! I made this Tunisian/Provencal Salad because, while I spend most of the summer making couscous/quinoa/pasta salads since it's too hot to use the oven, I'd never made one with brown rice, and the different flavours intrigued me.

First, cook 1 cup brown rice. I buy the somewhat instant kind, and it only takes 10 minutes. Totally worth it. Now, the author would like you to salt the cucumbers and the onion, but I was lazy and didn't do it. I just mixed the ingredients in a large bowl: 1 sliced cucumber, 1 chopped green pepper, 1/2 chopped red pepper, 1 finely chopped apple, and some chopped black olives. I omitted the 1 1/2 cups onion (!) so I threw in some green onions. I also added in some chopped dried apricots. The dressing was 5 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp lemon juice. I omitted the dried mint because I didn't have any, and threw in some beans for added protein.

This wasn't the most successful recipe, partly my fault I think. It was just too sweet for me - with the apple, but also the apricot I added, it just didn't have enough bite. Maybe if I had put in all that onion it would have been more balanced. I enjoyed it the day I made it, but sitting in the fridge for a day or two didn't help. I'll try again with less apple, more veggies and more olives - the best part!