A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 22

Salad rolls. Who said salad had to be served in a bowl or plate with cutlery?

Day 22. The final day of this month's foray into salad making. During this month, my family and I tasted our way through full meal salads, on to simple sides, flavours from other parts of the world, easy lunch salads and flavour explosions. Today's offering, as a means of wrapping things up, is to say that salad doesn't need to be served on a plate or a bowl; you don't need to use utensils. Why when the weather is scorching, and you're looking for something fun to make for dinner, think of these salad rolls! Easy peasy lemon squeezie. 

First things first. As there were again only two of us here at home, my little opted to have her favourite sweet chili sauce (a bottled version). I opted for a revisit of the peanut dressing from the Orchid Lime Salad from Whitewater Cooks, as the flavour was explosive and I just couldn't help myself. It seems a good salad roll needs a good substantial thick dressing in which to dip, and a zingy one at that. This one fits the bill to a T.

Shirataki noodles. Find them in the refrigerator section of your Asian supermarket.

As most salad rolls come with some delicious slurpy noodles in them, I opted to pick up some Shirataki noodles while at the Korean and Japanese Grocery Store down on 10th Ave at 14th Street in the SW. These noodles are so easy to prepare: just dump in a strainer straight from the package, and rinse them out. And voila, they're ready to use up!  They're a low-carb option for those who watch these kinds of things; me, I'm just looking for something quick and easy. They're made of a specific type of yam, and are quite high in fibre. They really have no taste, so lend themselves well to something like these salad rolls, especially if you have a tangy slurpy peanut mess of a sauce to bathe it all in.

Next, I sliced and chopped a variety of veggies we had on hand. This is quite reminiscent of the piles of ingredients I had on the Vietnamese Noodle Bowl salad day; it's the same concept. Each person gets to make their own salad rolls and the rule in our house is that you have to include at least 3 different vegetables. So in our piles on the butcher block were: arugula, pea sprouts, lettuce, radishes, carrots, cucumber, red cabbage, green onion, celery and yellow peppers. Not seen: black sesame seeds. What should have been included: cooked shrimp. They're delicious in something like this, but I forgot to defrost them in time. Also delicious in this would have been some avocado. You could also add some shredded nori crackers, or a smidge of kimchi or some other ferment in the midst of the pile-o-veg. It's up to you.

It's all about the options.

Next up, you prepare a big bowl of warm water, and you prep your rice papers (I prefer round ones for this). You soak one rice paper at a time, and really no longer than a count of 3. When you take it out of the water, it will seem improbable that it will ever bend enough, but by the time you load the paper up with your fixings, it will be flexible enough and not over-soaked. This way, it will hold the ingredients together much better and be less prone to ripping. 

Pile your ingredients one on top of the other in a mound in the centre of your paper, sprinkle on some seeds at the end. Tuck two sides of the paper in just to close off the ends, and then roll your rice paper up like a big cigar. 

This is where you can have some fun: you can mix those noodles in with a sauce like the one I used for dipping, or a soy-sesame concoction or something, or even a roasted red pepper kind of dip in order to add flavour. This is an incredibly versatile recipe. We both rolled four salad rolls each; I finished mine because I couldn't help myself, but my little lady stopped short of the last one. These are also good things to pull together to bring potluck style to someone's house; my good friend Erica does this all the time, and they are always the favourite item on the buffet table.

And that will do it, my friends! A big thank you to my parents who were the originators of month-of-salads: my parents and we four kidlets tended our vegetable patches every summer in our back yard and at our farm or our cottage, in fact they still do. My dad just received his Master Gardener designation! And my mom is the original Salad Queen, I owe my love of veggies to her. I thank the local suppliers that time and again inspire me to play with my food, and a big thanks go to my two honeys for putting up with these salad trials. I hope to post a compendium of my month of salads in the next day or so, be sure to check in to this 'posts' page and mark it for future reference, or share with ones you think would dig the recipes. I'm all ears as to other topics you'd like to cover in these monthly-type of food escapades, drop a comment below and I'll consider it! And let me know how you get on with these salads, or others you've come across that have caught your fancy. 

And people, for goodness sake, GO PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD.

Salad rolls, with Shiratake and Peanut Dressing from Whitewater Cooks

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 21

Day 21 is a combination of a few things in this salad-eating-month-I'm-in. Have you ever gone out for dinner and eaten something so delicious, you think 'MANG! Imma make this some day at my house and hope I can replicate the taste explosion.' So this salad is a bit of that, specifically a grilled wedge of caesar salad I once had at Notable here in Calgary. File that in the back of my mind. And I could have sworn that my Nourishing Traditions tome (one of the most-oft used cookbooks from my arsenal) had a ranch dressing in it. Coupled those two, and voila, inspiration for tonight's dinner salad, the Grilled Wedge with Prosciutto and Ranch Dressing. Probiotic-rich ranch dressing, that is.

I'll try to keep this one brief, as I tend to rattle on and on. Suffice it to say, there are many studies out there of late that are linking the health of your gut lining with the health of all other bodily systems, from the nervous system, to the brain, to the thyroid, to the immune system, to heart health, to how our hormones work, to the skin, and on and on it goes. There are studies linking the state of your innards to the incidence of arthritis, that an imbalance in your gut flora could be a contributing factor to the occurrence of certain cancers, or having an influence on your anxiety levels or even contributing to depression. How to best support your intestinal lining, then? There are things you can slow down or stop entirely in order to help restore that balance. There is a long list of good things to add to your daily foods, chief amongst them, fermented foods. Ah, these fermented foods are quite magic: they are key contributors to restoring the balance of bacteria (or your microbiome) in your gut, they break down pesticides, they free up a whole host of vitamins and minerals so we can better absorb them, they help keep inflammation down, and again, the list goes on and on. So kids, EAT YOUR FERMENTED FOODS. 

Just wanted to get that off my chest first. So yes, this recipe is probioticsfull. I just made up this new word. You too can use it in a sentence, and it will be yours. Probioticsfull. And the dressing is based on one from a blog called Riddlelove. You will find the link below. In the meantime, let me give you the content of one of my favourite topics of fermenting classes of late: CREME FRAICHE. This is how you're going to make some, mon ami(e). In a big litre-sized glass jar, put most of a litre of organic whipping cream. Yes yes, 35%. If you are so lucky to have a milk kefir grain handy or a friend who is willing to share theirs with you, plop that baby right in with the cream, and leave on the counter for 24 hours. And then you pop it in the fridge; your creme fraiche will be ready. If you do not have access to a milk kefir grain (a very different beast from a water kefir grain), you can purchase a package of freeze-dried Kefir Starter culture (like this one - available in the refrigerator section of your favourite local health food store) and you will drop one sachet of that in with the litre of whipping cream in the glass jar, mix it up, and leave it on the counter for a full 24 hour period, at which point you will then tuck away in the fridge until ready to consume. IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE. And make the best base for homemade ice cream.

My version of Riddlelove's Probiotic-rich Ranch Dressing

As for the dressing, I followed loosely the ingredients from Riddlelove's recipe (which you will find a link to at the bottom of this post):

3/4 cups creme fraiche

1/4 cups milk kefir (or yogourt, if you don't have any milk kefir (different than creme fraiche))

1/2 clove of garlic, minced

1 tbsp of fresh parsley, minced

2 tbsp of fresh chives, minced

1 tbsp of fresh dill, minced

1/8 cup of raw apple cider vinegar

1/4 tsp of sea salt

few turns of my pepper mill

The how-to: put everything in a glass jar. Screw lid on. Shake it with what your mama gave you. Tweak to make it taste to your liking.

I let this sit and meld flavours in the fridge for the better part of the day.

Come dinnertime, as it was only two of us at home tonight, I put the kid to work as she put a few handfuls of frozen peas in a pot and brought to a quick boil, she turned them off and drained them while I sliced a whole head of romaine lettuce in two, keeping the hearts on the wedges so as to keep them together. I brushed the wedges with good quality olive oil, and turned my BBQ on to heat up, along with my cast iron pan. When the pan was hot, I added enough chopped prosciutto ((you could do pork belly here - I think it would be fab!) or do up some fancy salmon) to the pan and tossed around until it got crispy. I dropped the lettuce halves on the hot grill and left them for maybe 2 minutes, enough to get some charcoal marks and a bit of that smoky BBQ taste on the greens, but not enough to wilt the things. And assembled right there, beside the BBQ. Half head of lettuce, crispy prosciutto, barely-cooked peas, and drizzled on that dressing. It was pretty dang good. Enthusiastic thumbs up from my little.

I'm sure there are food stylists that could make it look purty, but me, I was hungry. And truthfully, when we're cooking at home, we don't painstakingly make it all look so precious, do we? Sheesh. Not at this house...

Bon appétit, mes amies. And thanks to Katie at Riddlelove for the inspiration. I was sure there was a ranch recipe in the Nourishing Tradition book… 

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 20

Summer mode is upon us. I had a few prior commitments that were to happen over the course of the next few days that were cancelled, and while I'm bummed that I don't get to hang with sweet folks to play with our food, it means I get to have a few hours to play with food at my own house. And so today was the day! I had my good friend Jadwiga over this morning to chat about fermented things, and she introduced me to the deliciously sour jewel named Zur, a polish fermented grain beverage or flavour add-in made of ground up rye grains with garlic. A week from now, my homemade batch should be ready. Thanks Jaga for coming over and playing with me! Ah, friends. I am reminded time and again of the richness in this life.

And speaking of friends, our family was invited to join friends in an end-of-school-year-let's-usher-summer-in-in-style kind of shindig, and now, I am able to join them! Which means I got to play in the kitchen and come up with my own seaweed salad to bring to the potluck dinner. I am a big fan of seaweed; there are indications that we should include about a toonie sized piece of seaweed in our daily diet in order to get more minerals in our bodies. Seaweed is super rich in minerals like iodine (yay thyroid!), calcium and magnesium (my bones and nerves are happy!) and iron too (good energy support!). It is also a high protein food and has loads of vitamin C, which we all know is good for immune but also for helping us cope with stress, and good for skin to boot. What's not to love? I always go for a seaweed salad when out for a meal, if it's on the menu, I love it that much. But I had never attempted to make my own; it was part of the inspiration behind having a month of salads on the blog here, as I wanted to come up with an original for my yummy salad repertoire. I may have come up with something tasty!

Arame, soaking for 30 minutes for this Sesame Seaweed Cucumber salad

The how-to: drop a whole 50g package of seaweed of your choice in a big enough bowl, knowing that the seaweed will at least double in size. I chose to soak a package of Arame seaweed, as it's already shredded in tiny strands. (I'm a bit lazy, see?) Cover the seaweed with enough filtered water, adding more as it swells in size if need be. Let it soak for minimum 30 minutes; drain the seaweed. You could reserve the water to use as a mineral-rich addition to your plant water or your garden or compost pile. Waste not, want not.

While it's soaking, you can pull out your mandoline slicer or knife if you've got mad knife skills, and chop finely into strands the following vegetables:

1 carrot, peeled

2-4 radishes, or a big chunk of daikon radish

2 small cucumbers

1 green onion

about 2 tbsp of chopped chives

handful of sorrel, julienned (optional - sorrel is a lemony-flavoured perennial green you can grow in your garden. Substitute spinach if you like, or arugula or omit entirely.)

1 tbsp of chopped pickled red onions or

For the dressing, add all ingredients to a jam jar and give it a good shake, and pour over salad:

1 tbsp sesame seed oil (toasted sesame oil is my favourite)

2 tbsp rice wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar

 1/2 tbsp coconut sugar

1/2 tbsp coconut aminos (instead of soy sauce)

Add dressing to your salad, and toss to cover and let marinate for a bit in the fridge. To this, add 2 tbsp of sesame seeds you have toasted, for the crunch factor and extra calcium. And voila, you are ready for the potluck! Bon appetit mes amies, and welcome to summer for you all.

Seaweed Cucumber Sesame Salad

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 19

Today's salad, day 19 as I spend this month tasting my way through fresh ways to liven up my dinners, is one of my most favourite recipes, one I have been making for many years now. It's one I can put together quite easily when away visiting, and one I can easily make for potlucks, but it is one I like to make time and again for my family. It is one all three of us like, and one that tastes even better the longer it sits. Today's star of the show: YE ALL MIGHTY BEET. Not only do these tasty morsels colour your mouth (which leads to countless jokes and pranks about bloody mouths and horrible things) they are superstars when it comes to liver support. The liver, see, she does something like 500 jobs in the body.  She works hard for the money, honey. The liver is a key contributor to metabolism and the manufacturing of hormones, it's certainly our biggest filter organ that works hard to detoxify and disassemble spent hormones and metabolic waste from our cells; the liver also makes bile and stores glycogen, vitamins and minerals and on and on she goes. Choosing foods that best support the liver then will improve just about every aspect of our body's function, so beet it up, kids!

Roasting beets sans aluminum foil: put the in a wide pot with lid, throw in a few ice cubes' worth of meat stock or bone broth, and roast at 425F for about an hour, until they're cooked.

I grew up in a house with a steady stream of fresh veggies all summer long, as half our big back yard was covered in garden, and more gardens were planted and cared for at our farm in Quebec, and later at our cottage in Northern Ontario. Beets, green beans and peas were regulars on our summer supper tables; they still are when we are lucky enough to go back for a visit in the summer time! Oh my parents' gardens are a thing of beauty. I think of them every time I make this salad. This is loosely based on an epicurious recipe I found a long time ago; follow the link to the original recipe at the end of the post.

To start, I drop about 6 beets (scrubbed, not peeled) in a big enough pot that comes with a tight fitting lid, drop about 4 ice cubes' worth of meat stock in the bottom to give a bit of moisture as the beets roast in the oven at 425F for about an hour or an hour and a quarter, until they are cooked through. Instead of stock, you could use water. (Whenever I make a batch of meat stock, I save some of it in ice cube trays and tuck them in a plastic bag to keep in the freezer once they're frozen; it's a great thing to have on hand for a quick veg braise, or if I want to melt a few to make a cup of stock to drink, or thin a sauce, what have you.) Once they are cooked, take them out and let cool until ok to handle. At this point, peel your beets and trim the tail and tops, and cut into bite-sized chunks.

Your liver called. It said thank you.

While you wait for the beets to cool, assemble the dressing:

a full shallot, minced

2 tbsp lemon juice

3/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp ground pepper

1/4 cup good quality olive oil

I blitzed all of this in my mini food chopper, expressly made for dressings like this one. I tweaked to adjust the flavours. The original recipe calls for goat cheese, and I didn't have any on hand today, so I used instead a thickened kefir that was now like a cream-cheese consistency, and added in some chopped chives and parsley from the garden, and a crushed garlic clove. Once the beets were cooled enough, I tossed them with the dressing and the cheese, and because it was still a bit warmer the cheese ended up blending right in. I must say it's quite exquisite with goat cheese added when the veggies are completely cooled; the white chunks of cheese add a visual effect that was missed here. (After all, we do eat with our eyes first, yes?) I didn't mind today's version though. I threw in about 3 tbsp of soaked and dehydrated pistachios, and that was it. Sublime, when served alongside our Veggie Burgers and fresh hand-made perogies from Lethbridge's Saucy Ladies for my two honeys, it was the perfect way to ring in the official first day of summer in this here household. This could be my most favourite salad recipe. You just might want to try it.