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 18

This morning, I set out to do a simple pea-mint-feta kind of salad for dinner, as I thought it would be a refreshing side to add to the butter chicken, which was a request from my little. I usually have a few bags of organic peas in my freezer, I thought for sure I must have some. Instead, I found the last dregs of a bag we've been using lately, but no backup in the freezer; I resorted instead to what I have on hand. As most people do most nights, amiright? This was a "quick! toss it together! and get out the door!" kind of salad. This last week of June always seems so loaded every year; loaded with expectations, with good byes, with quick conversations on summer plans and tentative camping plans being set up (heck ya!). There are meetings to attend, and year-end concerts and final soccer games, the pressure just feels like it's ON. And I'm ok with that. I still love food at these times, and really use that short window of prep time to make something delicious so at least we can all share a meal together. Well, today was not one of those days. (See how I set you up there?) I had the most wonderful afternoon with my little, wrapping up her current school year with lunch on the town and throwing rocks in the river. But we ran out of time to do our annual tradition of picking a super summer read (new book!) on the way home from all this. I had a meeting to get to across town through rush hour traffic, so the window of prep got cut right short. It's ok. I roll with the punches. I still had to make that butter chicken...

Well that was to be left in my honey's very capable hands. I on the other hand, now had 25 minutes to make my dinner-to-go, clean up and look fairly decent. And then, found out there were no peas. Again, witness, me rolling with the punches. I put the water on. I blanched some frozen green beans (thank you freezer), and added that last bit of peas I had in the freezer at the very end. Tossed in some of my now-frozen-but-pre-soaked-sprouted-then-cooked-Puy-lentils from A Month of Salads Day 7 in order to get them to defrost. Drained the lot, and ran it through cold water to shock them and stop the cooking. 

In the meantime, I chopped some spinach I had on hand, added a fistful of chopped pea sprouts from Hotchkiss just down the road from yyc, an equal fistful of mint from my garden (even used my strawberry mint here. Interesting!). I knew chlorophyll was going to be the main attraction in this salad. What's not to love?

spinach mint and pea sprouts. talk about super greens.

On top of this green mound, I added more green (and white and purple): the green beans, smidgen of peas and puy lentils, crumbled some feta, some fermented red onions (quick ferment in brine for 1 week; alternately, you could do pickled red onions) and added some fresh Johnny Jump Up flowers my little pulled out of our patch out back. Did you know you could grow flowers and eat them? Get yourself acquainted with ones you can eat STAT. Because it is one of my favourite summer things.

So tucked the container in my bag, along with a package of seaweed crisps and a few water kefirs to share. Oh yes, and the dressing: maybe 2 tbsp of olive, 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar, 1 tbsp of honey, 1 tsp mustard, S&P. And off I went, to my evening of work. Feasted on this baby, along with my two colleagues/friends. Just pulled in; it's 1.15am. Thank goodness for good friends in this life, who I could spend hours talking with about anything and everything. I am posting this and am now off to bed. And planning a stop tomorrow to get that summer book read for my lady.

Mom was right, kids: EAT YOUR GREENS. And for my friends in need of thyroid support, swap out that goitrogenic spinach for something like an arugula or romaine lettuce. You're welcome.

Super greens lentil feta violet salad

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 16

This is one of my go-to salads I pull out on a regular basis. It's one of those perfect-for-a-potluck kind of salads. And it's straight up easy, my friends. Don't be fooled by the seemingly long list of ingredients! Sure, it's a chopped salad which means you'll be chopping, but consider chopping a meditative activity. I use this time to also think of those who will be eating this salad, and have often wondered if that energy makes its way into the food at all. Maybe yes, maybe no, regardless, I think this salad was a hit tonight. 

During this month of salads challenge I threw myself at the end of May, I knew this one would make an appearance. I knew it would somehow tie in to having a meal at someone else's house. And lo and behold, here we are on Day 16 and my re-jigged version of this Ottolenghi classic Na'ama's Fattoush Recipe from Jerusalem: A Cookbook makes an appearance. As Sunday was the Solstice, a friend gathered like-minded folks to celebrate and share a meal with great conversations while children run amok amongst us. These nights are favourites of mine: it seems I am so fortunate to always meet such interesting folks who really are doing fascinating work and have good stories to tell. This friend of mine, sweet Carmen, well she has a talent when it comes to curating a fabulous list of people for a dinner party. I just feel so lucky to be included in such good circles. And the food! The food! It always involves a BBQ something or other, and we all bring salad. In fact, at tonight's gathering we talked about starting a First-Sunday-of-the-month-Supper-Club kind of deal, the company and food was so fabulous. COUNT. US. IN.

Sumac is really worth finding and adding in. Tastes like no other.

Our contribution to the evening (aside from the perpetual jar of Creme Fraiche I seem to bring with me everywhere!) was a version of Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Fattoush recipe, probably originating from Sami's mom, or so the legend goes. Follow the link below for the full recipe. My alterations: I only did half of the dressing ingredients, and mixed all of those together instead of adding them to the actual salad. I used only yogurt, no milk (because I like me the fermented things, see?), and whizzed it with the garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and dried mint. If you're in Calgary, you can find Sumac at Shaganappi Grocer, on the south side of 17th Ave SW, just west of 36th St.

My veggies were a bit different, I added the tomato, radishes, cucumbers, green onions and fresh mint in the recipe, but I added a whole bunch of parsley instead of a smidge, threw in some chives from the garden and a half a fennel. I just love the crunchy anise taste of the fennel. It's like a celery I can actually like, nay, love.

To chop fennel, slice off the fronds and base of bulb, cut the bulb in half and in half again, and slice out the tough inner core. Thinly slice the remaining parts of the bulb, add liberally to salads. You can use the fronds to flavour your salad, or add them to your next sauerkraut, yumyum!

I also omitted the pita bread. I suppose this means it is no longer a Fattoush salad and maybe just a chopped salad. Whatever it is, it's such a refreshing salad, I could eat this one for days.  

My own version of the Fattoush Salad from Jerusalem: A Cookbook.

Thank you for the invitation for our family to join the gaggles of folks at your house, Carmen and Jim. And thank you to the constant inspirations from the London-based Ottolenghi restaurant and cookbooks. 

A MONTH OF SALADS - Day 14

Our lunch counter at the clinic. What you can't see is the lovely lass I get to share my lunch with on Thursdays. Sorry about the shadow. 

Today's salad is a #notsaddesklunch kind of day. I am at the clinic, in between clients, and thought to do the write up on the salad of the day. My aim was to make something under 10 minutes that would use up mainly ingredients in my pantry and stuff in the fridge. Nothing new, nothing fancy, just a simple delicious and nutritious offering that is easy to take to work so that I can enjoy a meal with my colleague while we nosh.

Top left to bottom left, clockwise: milk kefir, garlic, sardines, lightly steamed broccoli, avocado, fuji apple

While I was cooking my veggies for breakfast this morning, I put half a head of broccoli in to steam lightly in order to lessen the goitrogens (thyroid-supportive thing in my case). I always keep a stash of these Raincoast Trading sardines in spring water for days like this; I like these because the cans do not have BPA in the lining, and the fish are stored in simple spring water, there are no additives. Thanks to a former colleague Ray I got turned on to sardines: he said they're the original tuna salad! I tried them and thought well yes now they are. Sardines are lower down the food chain, and much smaller than tuna; the mercury and other heavy metal concentrations in the little guys are significantly lower than that found in Tuna, being a higher-up-on-the-chain kinda fish.

So in the salad bowl went my drained can of sardines. I added in a half an avocado, about 2 tbsp of milk kefir (you could use yogurt or creme fraiche if you'd like), pinch of sea salt, grind of pepper, about a tsp of curry powder (this is essential) and a tsp of ground coriander seeds, few glugs of olive oil, about a tbsp of lemon juice and one little clove of garlic, minced. I mashed it all together, along with a little heat (I added two of my fermented jalapeños but you could add chili pepper, or chopped fresh jalapeño, hot sauce, whatever!). 

The mashed ingredients cited above, with the steamed broccoli.

Once this was all mashed together, I tossed on top the blanched broccoli, a diced apple and diced up two stalks of celery, mixed it all up. I adjusted the flavours to be a bit more lemony and upped the curry powder a bit. Because that's how I roll. And that, my friends, is lunch served. As long as you include creme fraiche (with berries, vanilla powder, green tea powder and maple syrup) and a little package of seaweed crackers. All you need now is a lovely friend to share the meal with; sharing meal times with a loved one can really go miles in supporting better digestion. Did you know this? Sharing a meal with a friend instead of a smartphone ensures your nervous system is properly engaged to do the work it takes to digest. It also relieves stress to be with ones you love whilst you eat; stress has been shown to inhibit digestion. So take a break, my pretties! And in more ways that one, make sure your work lunch is a #notsaddesklunch everyday.

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