A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 13

La salade for today is a lunch thing, a delicious lunch thing if I may add. It all started with inspiration from my good neighbour Cait who brought over extra bean sprouts she wasn't planning on using.  My lovely friend shared with me that she made a Thai-inspired salad from one of the Whitewater Cooks cookbooks. I did some digging around, and thought well YES that is a brilliant idea! (Cait, she has lots of good ideas. I am a lucky lucky neighbour and friend.) Knowing I had to be out of the house for most of the afternoon and all evening today, I thought to make the salad for lunch instead. And the post today is the end result: HEAVEN. Thank you Cait for the sprouts and the idea. Thank you Shelley Adams from Whitewater Cookbooks for all the inspirations you have provided for countless food-lovers and -makers. You are both gems.

Of course, being a nutritionist I had to tweak things to up that nutritional ante. I am also notorious at being unable to follow a recipe, nor be exact. It's more based on tastes and tweaks my friend, so go ahead and play with your food, willya?

You'll find the scrumptious recipe here (thanks to Canadian Health & Lifestyle for the post). What I swapped out:

FOR DRESSING: instead of the sweet chili sauce, I threw in about 4 of my fermented jalapeños; I only had 2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar so I added 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar to equal the 4 tbsp required in the recipe; I used coconut aminos instead of the soy sauce (in order to lessen the ill effects of soy); I added in some fresh turmeric root in addition to the ginger because I had some and my liver asks for it all the time; I omitted the vegetable oil as I found it didn't need any oil when all blitzed together already. But you could use olive oil instead of vegetable oil to up that omega 3 count. HOLY SHNEIKERS THIS DRESSING IS KILLER. Be forewarned.

FOR THE SALAD: Instead of using the cooked rice noodles, we used a peeler to get long noodle-like shreds from about 2 lbs of carrots and blanched them in water on the stove for about 8 minutes, until they were similar in texture to rice noodles; didn't add the sesame oil; instead of the candied nuts and seeds (which would surely be delicious), I toasted pumpkin seeds and added them along with crushed brazil nuts to the salad as is. (Brazil nuts are high in selenium - a nutrient super-important in supporting the thyroid and its function, and one of those highly-sought-after antioxidants that are so important in our body's daily detoxification work.). And our veggies reflected more the state of our crisper: we had in the mix the blanched carrots, shreds of cucumber, radishes, yellow pepper, bean sprouts and radish sprouts. We garnished the dish with thai basil I cut a-la-chiffonade and tossed on top some smoked salmon. 

Might I say this is one of the best lunches I have had in a long time. I think it might have had a lot to do with the company: my bestie came over and we chatted and visited whilst we prepared the goodies and tucked right in. Wednesdays are one of my favourite days of the week, for that very reason.

Orchid Lime Salad with tweaks, courtesy of Shelley Adams at Whitewater Cookbooks

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 12

I just wrote this eloquent write up and it all disappeared into the ether. So I will be brief. It was a not-home-til-6-pm night here, and so I whipped this baby up. It's a somewhat busy set up, but if you have a few set of hands to help out on different tasks, I think you'll get it done in no time flash. This is a favourite from my mother-in-law who serves this every summer when we are out at the cabin; it's a true crowd pleaser, and the soggy leftovers make for a good lunch the next day. Would I lie to you?

The original recipe.

I tweaked the original recipe in order to up the nutritional ante and make this one nutrient-dense. Let's start with the base:
1 head romaine lettuce, washed and chopped
Any greens from the garden or crisper you're looking to get rid of (I used sorrel and radish sprouts)
4 tomatoes, diced
1 yellow pepper, diced (Thanks local lovelies Broxburn for the good veg!)
3 green onions, sliced
1 1/2 cups shredded cheese

Mix together and set aside. (Know that you can add any other kind of veggies you have on hand; I've done it with shredded beets, snap peas, tomatillos, I mean the sky is the limit.) 

Meanwhile, heat up a fry pan on the stovetop and add:
1 pound of ground beef (preferably free range or organic)
1 onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Saute until cooked through.

Add
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp chili powder
1 tsp ground coriander
3/4 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
pinch of salt and pepper

When sautéed nicely, set aside to cool. 

Next up, make the Caesar Salad dressing from Day 4 (recipe here) minus the garlic, and add a bit more lemon.

To this, add:
1/2 cup creme fraiche (substitute sour cream if you can't find or make your own creme fraiche)
2 tbsp ketchup (I like to use my fermented ketchup or you could use some fermented salsa too)

Add this dressing to the salad, along with the cooled seasoned ground beef and mix all together. On top, it's optional but you can add extra crunch by adding either crushed up kale chips, or like we did, a bag of these beans & rice chips. A nice sprouted corn chip would also be tasty. Play with your food! 

Next up, sit down, and maybe have some hot sauce on hand. You know what I'm going to say. I use one that I ferment myself. (Who wants to host a class?) But it's just because I found a steal of a deal on a shwack of hot peppers from The Apple Lady. (Thanks Liisa!) But you can use whatever is your favourite hot sauce and know that it will indeed, kick it up a notch. Tuck in my friend. And come up for air once in a while. Otherwise I'll miss your face.

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 11

Day 11. First day of week 3. I made a salad! Well now of course I did. I'm in the groove now, there ain't no stoppin this train! Today's salad was a whip-it-together-while-the-pork-chops-grill kinda day with a full hour in between arrival apres-school and departure-for-soccer. Love these nights. My aim: to use up the leftover watermelon in my fridge. My mission: to make it tasty and reminiscent of something I would see at Ottolenghi's (ok a far cry for SURE, but let's say instead INSPIRED by Ottolenghi's.). Final result: pretty good!

Local suppliers Hotchkiss featured prominently in this salad.

Whisked the dressing together first, to make sure it was tasty enough: about 1/4 cup good quality olive oil, added about 2 tbsp pomegranate molasses (you can find this at any Middle Eastern shop, my favourite being Shaganappi Grocer on 17th Ave SW, just west of 36th Street on the south side), about 2 tbsp red wine vinegar to up the sharpness, juice of one lemon, pinch of sea salt and grind o pepper, and adjusted til it tasted right. Chopped in this mess some fresh mint from the garden, parsley too, added these here local delicious radish sprouts courtesy of Hotchkiss Produce, some of their pea sprouts too, and chopped up some watermelon, I would say maybe 2 cups. I forgot to mention, while I was putting this whole thing together, I put up 1 cup water with 1 cup bone broth on to boil, and threw in a cup of sprouted quinoa in there to cook for 15 minutes. Cooled it. Then added that to the salad mess. This was the result.

Take that, Monday night. We were even on time for the soccer game tonight. And my girl KICKED IT! Good lord above, sometimes I think I have the best seat in the house watching this one through her days. Salad on, my friends. And thanks to those who have been sending me pics of their dinner table salad offerings! I am inspired!

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 10

Apologies for posting this a day late. I fell asleep at 7.30 last night, before I could post about the salad. The salad! Sometimes, simple is best. Truthfully for me (and I'm guessing for most of you), simple needs to be central to dinner prep on all nights. This simple salad is one of my general go-tos, although I did add a new ingredient. In the spirit of broadening my horizons, I thought to include something I have never used before. Ta-da! Watercress!

You need to pull the leaves and discard the stems for watercress.

Watercress grows near water, and is a distant cousin of mustard. For those who are curious, it's a densely packed wallop of a salad ingredient, providing us with vitamin K, necessary for bones and brain health. It's also of good support to the liver, also protecting our DNA and red blood cells from free radical damage. I de-stemmed about half a bunch of watercress, put it on top of a bed of mixed greens, sliced strawberries and sprinkled pistachios on top. The crunch factor is a very important part of salad success.

As for the dressing, I mixed olive oil, rice wine vinegar (3:1 ratio), spoonful of honey, about a teaspoon of dijon mustard, pinch of sea salt, grind of pepper and added some lemon thyme leaves from my garden out back. Fresh herbs can really liven up a salad, and adding them to your dressing is a brilliant way to up the nutritional ante: herbs and spices are often densely packed nutrient bundles of flavour. That's a win in my books.

This salad was quite fresh and took all of 10 minutes to assemble, mostly due to the stripping of stems on the watercress. Imagine if you grew it in your back yard though! How much easier it would be, you could pick it early and just use the baby cress in your salad. I dream big, kids. I dream big.

Speaking of back yards… We went a little hog wild today and built a few hugelkultur beds, in order to increase the yield of our back yard. We built a few beds and built up former garden boxes, and covered them in salad greens and chard, zucchini, beans, carrots and beets, liberally sprinkled in some calendula, marigolds and nasturtiums. It's going to be a tasty and super fresh summer.

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 9

What does salad mean to you? Is it a pile of veggies? A few simple ones? Clean, raw, or roasted? Maybe marinated? Full of flavour, of course yes. Nutrient-dense, that's a given. But not the reason we eat them. (Or maybe for some, it is.) What about fruit? There is nothing like a zing of something sweet in the midst of a flavourfest of salty coupled with crunchy and punchy. That's what this salad is. And yes, you can quote me on that. On Day 9, I chose this a day to celebrate the fruity side of delicious salads, namely Watermelon.

Kiddo gets a deconstructed version, minus the onions.

This Watermelon, Feta and Arugula salad from Shared Appetite is an easy peasy lemon squeezie addition to any meal. The balsamic reduction is divine. (I've always wanted to try my hand at making some - couldn't be simpler. AND TASTIER. See what I do for you? Learn new tricks.) I used one of my new favourites in my pantry, the Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar from Blue Door Oil & Vinegar here in yyc. Wowza. This is where you get the punchy; the flavour is so full! And you only need a little!

I used a super salty goat feta from Shaganappi Grocer, a tip from my good friend Liz who is one of the best foodies I know. If you have never been to this store that specializes in Middle Eastern specialties, you must head to the SW corner of 17th and 36th, in the SW of Calgary. 

The recipe calls for pickled onions, and it just so turns out that I have a small reserve of fermented red onions I did back last fall. They were certainly up to the task, and gave a nice bite with edge to the whole mix.

They do lose their kick of colour, but gain probiotic power in the meantime.

Thanks to the blog Shared Appetite for this incredible salad, my most favourite one yet this month.  You'll find the link at the end of the post. You don't need much of the balsamic reduction, and I recommend drizzling it on with a spoon before it completely cools, as mine got quite thick I wonder how I would have gotten it on the salad in thin enough strands to not over-power and look messy. This is one beautiful easy salad. My kinda meal. (Along with bacon from local superstars TK Ranch and eggs from Bluemountain Biodynamic Farms which were the sides. I love an easy supper. You?)

Pardon my photographic ineptitude. I was too hungry to notice the shadow. Know that it still tasted delicious.