nourishing the body
Here’s a salad to nourish the body with life giving phytonutrients. They say you should eat the rainbow. This certainly fits the bill. Inside is purple cabbage, carrots, yellow bell peppers, pickled daikon radish, cucumber, sprouted moth beans and sprouted peas. I made a dressing from fresh grated ginger, mayonnaise (ok, not completely vegan), rice vinegar, soy and wasabi. It was filling and delicious. I feel so healthy.
This salad exceeded all my expectations. For two servings I used one half of a tomato, chopped, and two thin stalks of celery. To this was added a couple tablespoons of fresh French tarragon – the kind that has that nice anisey bite to it. A couple tablespoons of olive oil, a splash of rice vinegar, a sprinkle of sugar, salt and pepper and that was all it took to create this salad. I served it on a bed of shredded romaine lettuce. The tarragon married beautifully with the tomato and rhubarb.
I have fallen in love with Shiratake noodles. They are made from soybeans, have very low carbs and essentially no calories (20 per serving). I took one Asian eggplant and the other half of that tomato and stewed it up with salt, pepper and garlic. I added a splash of balsamic vinegar and finished the dish with fresh oregano.
I just threw together some shrimp, garlic, commercial chili flakes in oil, salt and pepper and flash sautéed them. Just as the shrimp were about done I threw in cooked soba noodles and tossed them all together in the pan. YUMMY!
Hope you enjoyed this. You CAN make great tasting food without the fat and calories.
This noodle salad was perfect to take to a party this evening. Inspired by Thai cuisine, this dish used Korean mung bean cellophane noodles. These are usually used in the Korean dish called chop chae but instead I made a Thai style salad. I cooked the noodles until tender and cooled them under running cold water. The salad contained grated carrot, cucumber and green onions. The Thai peanut dressing was made from 3 tbsp natural creamy peanut butter, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 1 tbsp fish sauce, 4 cloves garlic, and 1 Thai chili pepper. The sauce was pureed in the blender until good and smooth. This was tossed with the noodles and vegetables. It was quite a hit at the party!
Soba – ?? – Japanese buckwheat noodles
I love cold noodle salads. It doesn’t matter what kind of pasta for me. All that matters is that it is flavorful. Japanese cuisine is so amazing in it’s complicated simplicity. The Japanese like attention to detail and have a knack for combining just a few flavors with textures so that everything is clean and harmonious. Soba noodles have a subtle earthy buckwheat flavor that you really don’t want to completely cover up. So, this noodle salad I made combines a few Asian influences that highlights the buckwheat rather than snuffs it out. It is so easy to prepare and so satisfyingly flavorful.
I boiled the soba just until tender but still slightly al dente. You don’t want them soft and soggy. I rinsed them with cold water to chill and let them drain. I mashed up one large clove of garlic finely. I thinly sliced a few green onions. These were mixed with the noodles along with a splash of toasted sesame oil, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of rice vinegar and a few drops of nuoc mam Vietnamese fish sauce. No, I didn’t measure anything. I just added what I thought would be enough. You don’t want the noodles swimming in dressing. You just want to coat the lightly with these flavorful ingredients. That’s it! Plate it up and enjoy. I think the garlic flavors are better if you let the salad chill for a few hours before eating.
As promised I will be posting details of the dishes I prepared for a five course dinner last weekend. So, let’s start with the first course, shall we? Inspired by a classic caprese salad I created a roasted beet salad with fresh chèvre, balsamic vinegar and basil oil. I was dying to use some of the plethora of beets I have maturing in my garden right now. This turned out better than I anticipated.
The beet preparation could not be simpler. I love roasted beets and they are so easy to do. I just take them from the garden, trim the roots and stalks, and tightly wrap them individually in foil. No need to skin them. They were placed on a sheet and roasted in a 425 °F oven for about an hour. Once cooled the skins will slip right off. I used three kinds of beets. One is a yellow beet called ‘Touchstone Gold’. I also have a ‘Chiogga’ beet which has red and white stripes inside. These two beets are tasy and the colors hardly bleed. Unlike the purple beet, ‘Red Ace’, which will stain anything it touches. Personally I like the sweetness of the yellow beets the best but the purple ones have the most classic beet flavor. On top of the beets was placed some fresh goat cheese. A bit of balsamic vinegar was poured in the middle and the plate was garnished basil oil.
Basil oil is so easy to make. I took about a half cup of tightly packed basil leaves and 1 cup of good olive oil in a food processer and processed it briefly to chop up the basil. This was placed in a pan and heated for about 5 minute to infuse the oil with the flavor. Careful not to cook it. I heated it until the traces of water started sizzling and bubbling.
The oil was poured through a strainer and cooled. The result is a deep green colored oil with tons of basil flavor.
Next up – linguini carbonara. Stay tuned.