Roasted Corn and Mango Salad

Last month Mr RK and I went south for a little anniversary holiday to Baja Mexico.  I had a salad for lunch one day that would have knocked my socks off, had I been wearing any. Filled with fragrant roasted corn and large chunks of fresh avocado and mango, it was topped with a delicate lime cilantro dressing.  It was so delicious that I went back and had it again.  

Kale Quinoa Salad with Hazelnuts Pesto

My daughter sent me a text the other day telling me about a new food truck in Union Square (NYC) that serves primarily raw organic food.  She raved about their quinoa kale salad that she described as "literally the best thing I've ever had".  Very high praise, so I offered to try and deconstruct it for her and come up with a recipe that she could make at home.  

Pear Almond Barley Salad

I realize that I haven’t posted any new recipes since the new year.  Like many Americans, I’ve simplified my diet by focusing on fruits, vegetables, bean and grains to try and shed the “holiday pounds”.  I’m avoiding sugar, flour and high fat foods and it’s working.   Eating green salads as a main meal in winter is difficult for me, I like to eat a warm dinners, so I came up with this combination warm and cold salad.

Buckwheat Noodle Salad with Orange Peanut Dressing

The inspiration for this salad was a recipe in the Fields of Greens cookbook by Annie Somerville.  She’s the executive chef at Greens, a celebrated vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco.  While their noodle salad has been a favorite on their menu since the late seventies, I felt it needed updating.  I didn’t want to blanch the vegetables..I didn’t see the point.  Carrots and peas are wonderful when they’re raw and crunchy.  I also changed the dressing by balancing the flavors more to my taste.  The result was wonderful.  One of our new favorite dinner salads.  This recipe makes four decent sized servings but Mr. RK and I ate the whole thing.  We had to have seconds, it’s that good.

Potato Salad

Those who know me well will think this is an odd dish for me to make, because they know that I’m allergic to potatoes.  Yes, potatoes.  I have a number of food allergies, and potatoes is one of them.  However, a neighbor invited us over for a 4th of July dinner and asked me to make some potato salad.   I was happy to contribute to the meal and I knew that Mr. RK, who loves all things potatoes, would love some.  Because of my allergy, I tend not to cook them. 

Orange Pistachio Quinoa Salad

My favorite winter fruit is the perfect satsuma mandarin orange.  They have no seeds and they’re very juicy and sweet and travel well.  By this I mean that you can toss a couple of them in your bag and they won’t make a mess of things.   They’re easy to peel and divide into segments so they don’t make a mess when you eat them either.  They’re also loaded with vitamin C.  The only problem I have with the satsumas is that they aren’t available all year like other varieties of oranges, so I have to get my fill of them while they last.  

Tofu Apple Salad

A chicken apple salad caught my attention in a deli case the other day and it looked really good to me.  A perfect fall lunch, especially now that apples are in season.   I don’t eat chickens, but I thought to myself, I can make that and substitute baked tofu for the chicken.  So, that’s what I did.  This is a very quick and easy recipe, especially if you buy the tofu already baked.

Roasted Asparagus Salad

I went to a family event last weekend and my contribution was this roasted asparagus dish.  It was so tasty, I’m making it again for a July 4th get together with neighbors.  This is a perfect party platter because you can cook the components up ahead of time and assemble it later, especially if you’re going to be traveling. 

Grainless Tabouli Salad

I have to admit that before I started making this salad a few years ago, I’d never eaten parsnips.  My mother never cooked them, so as an adult, I really didn’t know how to eat them until I got involved with a raw food project at work.  I was working with raw a food chef, Roxanne Klein, who introduced me to parsnip tabouli.  I don’t have her original recipe but I do know that the bulgar was replaced with a combination of parsnips and pine nuts.

Greek Inspired Quinoa Salad

Greek salads are one of my favorites.  I think it has a lot to do with the kalamata olives.  I just love them. But it’s also the combination of flavors, crispy cucumbers, spicy red onions, and juicy ripe tomatoes.   It’s probably better to make Greek salads later in the summer when cucumbers and tomatoes are taking over the garden, but I found some cute little Persian seedless organic cucumbers and I wanted to try them. 

Tahini Goddess Dressing

I try to eat a salad every day, usually for dinner.  If I go for a day or two without eating raw vegetables, I start to crave them.  I make all kinds of salads, some of which I’ve shared with you on this blog.  There was the sprouted wild rice salad and the raw zucchini salad.  I’ve also posted a recipe for raw broccoli salad and Mexican quinoa salad stuffed squash.  

I usually start with a base of different kinds of greens, like lettuces, spinach and cabbage.  I top that with some grated carrots and beets, and then I add chopped tomatoes and whatever else is in season.  

I top the salad with some protein, like baked tofu or fake bacon or a chopped up veggie burger.  Sometimes I add corn and avocado to the salad and top it with a black bean tamale and salsa.  This is one of Mr. RK’s favorite salads.

Winter Cole Slaw

As I was typing the title for this post, it struck me what an odd name “cole slaw” is for a salad and I wondered what it’s origins were.  I turned to the web for a quick answer.  The term “cole slaw” comes from the partial translation of the Dutch term “koolsla”, a shortening of “koolsalade” which means cabbage salad.  Now it makes sense.  Apparently, the Romans were probably the first to make cole slaw, because it’s mentioned in Caelius Apicius’ collection of cook books (On the Subject of Cooking) from the 4th or 5th century.  His version contained vinegar, eggs and spices.

Raw Broccoli Salad

I have to admit that I was never a big fan of raw broccoli.  Whenever raw veggies are offered at a party, I would always avoid the broccoli, and eat the carrots, celery or cucumbers.  It has a raw taste I just didn’t like. 

Broccoli is such a power house vegetable.  Rich in vitamins A and C.  It also contains a significant amount of calcium, fiber and other nutrients with anti-cancer properties.  This is a vegetable that one shouldn’t ignore.

4 Bean Salad

I harvested my first green beans of the summer a few days ago.  (click on “My Garden” at the top of the page for more information about growing green beans)  Because I only got a small handful of beans, not really enough to serve on their own, I went to the web in search of a bean salad recipe.  3 Bean salad is what first comes to mind, but I wanted to update it a little.  I had kidney and garbanzo beans on hand as well as some edamame, (green soybeans) so I turned it into a 4 bean salad.  

Raw Zucchini Salad

I harvested my first zucchini yesterday.  It was so fresh, I didn't have the heart to cook it.  You preserve the enzymes that help you digest vegetables when you eat them raw.  I decided to make a zucchini salad.

Wild Rice Salad

I’m always looking for ways to increase the protein content of our meals, because we don’t eat meat or poultry.  Wild rice is very high in protein.  It has almost double the protein of brown or white rice.  It’s also high in iron.  Wild rice is actually a grass, and the only cereal grain native to North America. Originally, It grew mostly in the Great Lakes region, but now it’s cultivated in paddies in Northern California.  The California rice is good but the grains tend to be shorter.  I try to buy the wild harvested rice if I can.