Wild Rice Salad

Note: For my first attempt making this rice salad, I used a mix of wild rice and Japanese white rice. This was a disaster! The wild rice was nice, crunchy, and the individual grains were separated, however the white rice disintegrated and became starchy, indistinct grains, gluey, similar to congee. Fail! The cooked rice grains for this salad should be distinct and separated; there shouldn't be any liquid left. Asian white rice does not work in this recipe; maybe brown rice would, though I don't have any in my kitchen at the moment. So, I used that instead to make a soup, and then restarted with just wild rice.

I wanted the wild rice to be dressed with olive oil and vinegar, and to have some sort of roasted nuts, and some focused flavorings (i.e. just roasted veggies, and nuts, but no herbs, paprika, or other spices that I usually add to everything). Once I tossed the salad, I decided it needed some color and sweetness, so I added the sun dried tomatoes (mine are actually dehydrated early girl tomatoes from the farmer's market).

1/3 cup wild rice
1 cup water
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp sherry vinegar
1 roasted shallot
1 roasted serrano pepper
a few cloves of roasted garlic
1 few sun dried tomatoes, soaked in a very small amount of water for about 5 minutes to soften
toasted cashews
(roasted veggies were made with this recipe)

Add 1/3 cup wild rice and 1 cup water to pan (approximate a rice to water ratio of 1:3). Bring to a boil. Turn heat down to low, cover, and keep at a simmer for about 50 minutes or until the wild rice is cooked. The rice is cooked when the grains start to split. If there is too much water left, then you can either strain the water out or turn up the heat to evaporate it. Let the wild rice cool to room temperature.

Chop the roasted shallots into quarters, and separate some of the layers. Lightly chop the roasted garlic and the sun dried tomatoes. Mince the roasted serrano pepper.
Add 1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 Tbsp sherry vinegar, roasted shallots, roasted serrano pepper, roasted garlic, roasted cashews, water that the sun-dried tomatoes were soaked in, and salt to the cooked rice. Taste and adjust the seasonings. Serve at room temperature.