Black Bean Salad

Day 355

Thursday, October 8

Black Bean Salad

Black Bean Salad

Original recipe

Ingredients

1 cup black beans, cooked until tender
1 red pepper, chopped
1 avocado, chopped
Few stalks of green onion, sliced
Fresh herbs, chopped
2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved

Cooked black beans

reen onions & red pepper

Cherry tomatoes

Fresh herbs

Vinaigrette Dressing

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp maple syrup
1 small garlic clove, grated
Sea salt, to taste
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Chili flakes, to taste

Vinaigrette dressing

Reviews/Comments

This salad was really tasty and fresh. Even the next day when I took it for my lunch, it was still delicious. And fresh. I think the herbs and lemon make it so.

I give it an 8. Laura gave it a 9.

Fresh Garden Salad with Texas Toast

Day 264

Dinner on a dime.

Fresh Garden Salad with Texas Toast

Fresh Ingredients

A variety of lettuces (Romaine, Buttercrunch, Oak Leaf, etc)
Radish
Spinach
Kale
Snow Peas
Cucumber

A variety of lettuces

Other Ingredients

Toasted slivered almonds
Chow mein noodles
Facon bits (on Laura's salad)
Salad dressing

 Laura's Salad

French Salad Dressing

1/3 cup red wine vinegar
1 cups sunflower oil
1/4 cup ketchup
3 tbsp sugar
1 pressed garlic clove
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp soy sauce

Salad dressing

Reviews/Comments

The salad was delicious, and nutritious, but not super exciting. The toast was nice. I give it an 8.5. I sopped up the extra dressing with my bread because the dressing was lovely.

Laura said hers was good. She rates it a 7.

Fresh Garden Salad

Day 262

Fresh Garden Salad

From the Garden

A variety of lettuces (Romaine, Buttercrunch, Oak Leaf, etc)
Radish
Spinach
Kale
Parsley

From this:

Harvesting veggies

To this:

Washing veggies

And finally this:

Fresh Garden Salad

Asian Garden Salad

Day 258

Asian Garden Salad

From the Garden

Laura's garden is growing and some of the plants are already ready to harvest. The lettuce in particular needed to be thinned out and there are always tons of scallions. We also picked some kale and a couple radishes, which went amazingly well with the Asian dressing.

Red & green leaf lettuces

Garden veggies

From the Store

We also added to our salad some slivered almonds from the Bulk Barn which we toasted in a dry frying pan and a some Mandarin oranges from Sobeys. Laura topped hers with some Farkin chowmein noodles, too.

Toasted slivered almonds

Mandarin oranges

Asian Ginger Dressing

Original recipe
Laura made the dressing, and it was awesome. She followed the original recipe with the exception of adding the teaspoon of sesame oil.

Ingredients
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp rice vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tbsp + 1 1/2 tsp honey
1 tsp sesame oil

Directions
Mix well.

 Asian Ginger Dressing

Asian garden salad & dressing

Reviews/Comments

This meal was absolutely delicious and gets a 10 from both of us. The only downside is the prep time, since all the veggies had to be washed well, then dried, and chopped. But, it's worth the time. So fantastic.

Oven-Roasted Potatoes, Broccoli/Cauliflower & Garden Salad

Day 246

I love summer.

Oven-Roasted Potatoes

Broccoli/Cauliflower & Garden Salad

Oven-Roasted Potatoes

Peel, chop, toss with olive oil and lay out on the pan. Shake some sea salt and freshly ground pepper over it and toss some herbs over it and roast for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees F. This part of the meal was simple.

Oven-roasted potatoes

The herbs were handpicked by Laura the Gardener herself and include:

• Rosemary
• Greek oregano
• Parsley
• English thyme
• French thyme

Herbs

Garden Salad

First salad of the summer. And plenty more coming behind it. This part of the meal required the washing and drying of leaves and stuff.

Garden greens

Salad Ingredients
Baby leaf lettuces (Lollo Rossa, Black-seeded Simpson, & red and green Oak Leaf lettuces)
Kale (Red Russian)
Scallions
Fresh oregano
1/2 red onion (from last year's harvest, believe it or not!)
1/3 English cucumber
1/2 cup roasted, salted peanuts
1 can mandarin oranges
Pansy petals for garnish

Garden salad

Zingy Poppyseed Salad Dressing
Original recipe
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1/3 tsp dry mustard
1/3 tsp salt
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tbsp minced red onion
2 tsp poppyseeds

Zingy poppyseed salad dressing

Broccoli/Cauliflower

With Hollandaise, of course. The original idea was to have broccoli stuffed baked potatoes, but the potatoes we had were small and looking a bit aged. So, we went with broccoli and cauliflower as a side instead. And couldn't give up the idea of Hollandaise since Hollandaise makes everything better.

Broccoli & cauliflower

Oven-roasted potatoes

Garden salad & broccoli/cauliflower

Reviews/Comments

Well, this meal had a lot of our favorite things plus a few nutrients to use later, so we both rate it a 9-er. Again, I'm looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

Salad & Garlic Bread

Day 216

Salad & Garlic Bread

Sloppy Joes & Beet Salad

Day 195

Saturday, May 2

Sloppy Joes

As usual, we make our sloppy Joes using Yves Original Veggie Ground. It's not bad. It sort of mimics the texture of ground beef, enough to make enjoyable sloppy Joes, tacos, Shepherd's pie, etc. The flavor is not beefy, more like beans and onions, etc. It works.

Sloppy Joes & Beet Salad

I've blogged our Sloppy Joe recipe before, so just click here to see how it's made.

Sloppy Joes & buns on the stovetop

Beet Salad

Like the kale salad of yesterday, this one is from a kit. The kit contains kale and sprouts, etc, and for the extras, they include golden raisins, diced cooked beets, feta cheese and white wine vinegrette.

Beet salad

Sloppy Joes & Beet Salad

Reviews/Comments

I give this an 8 or 9. Our sloppy Joe recipe is really, really yummy...and these salad kits are surprisingly fresh and delicious.

Quinoa Burgers with Kale Salad

Day 194

Friday, May 1

This was as quick and easy as I could think of on Friday night.

Quinoa Burgers with Kale Salad

Other than chopping and sautéing some mushrooms and onions, that it, it was quick and easy. 

 Mushrooms & red onion sautéing

These salad kits you can get now are soooooo awesome. Open the bag and dump contents into a bowl. The produce contents include:

• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Chicory
• Kale

Kale salad kit

Inside are packets of yummies and salad dressing. This one came with pumpkin seeds, craisins and poppyseed dressing.

Kale salad kit

We used the SOL quinoa burgers again. I like these ones because they don't contain soy. We eat enough soy as it is, so I try to find other options when I can.

Burgers & buns, etc

Burger condiments

Quinoa Burgers with Kale Salad

Reviews/Comments

I give the meal a 9. It was super good, and best of all, didn't take long to make or clean up after, so I can enjoy the rest of my Friday night.

Open-Faced Cheese & Tomato with Greek Salad

Day 172

We ate dinner out at Mike's Bar last night and it didn't once occur to me to take a pic. Derrrrr

Greek Salad

I ordered a big pile of fried stuff and Laura had a Greek salad. She is so much wiser than I. I actually felt really ill later on - way too much fat.

We had them bag up our leftovers and had the rest of her Greek salad with the leftover Boston Bib lettuce from Tuesday.

Open-Faced Cheese & Tomato with Greek Salad

Open-Faced Cheese & Tomato

For good measure, I made us each a couple of open-faced cheese and tomato sandwiches to have with the salad.

Reviews/Comments

All in all, not bad. I give it a 7.

Me: How was supper?
She: Good.
Me: Rating?
She: Hmmm...8

Cold Plates

Day 162

Most people will think "lunch meat" at the mention of a cold plate, but our cold plates are salads and pickles and stuff.

Cold Plates

Cold Plates

• Potato Salad
• Broccoli Salad
• Lentil Salad
• Gherkins Pickles
• Stuffed Manzilla Olives
• Homemade Dills aka. Cian's Garlic Dills
• Kühne Pickled Beets
• Cheddar Cheese
• Soft White Rolls

Potato Salad

Ingredients

7 potatoes
5 eggs
1/2 white onion
1 1/2 cup salad dressing
1/3 cup coffee cream
1 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tbsp white vinegar
Salt & pepper
Paprika

Boil eggs and potatoes (separately), then chop them and let cool completely.

Boiled eggs

Boiled potatoes

Chop onion fine and mix with the potatoes and eggs.

Chopped onion (red for lentil salad & white for potato salad

Mix  salad dressing, mustard, sugar and vinegar to make the sauce, and fold into the potato mixture. Add salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle the top of the salad liberally with paprika.

Potato salad

Broccoli Salad

We got this broccoli salad recipe from our friend, Marianne, many years ago.

Ingredients

1 package broccoli crowns
1 small red onion
1/2 cup walnut pieces
1/2 cup Thompson's raisins
1 cup red grapes, halved
1/2 cup salad dressing
3 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp white vinegar

Broccoli, red onions, walnuts, grapes, raisins

Blanch the broccoli. Let cool in a bowl and then add the walnuts, onion, grapes and raisins.

Broccoli salad, sans dressing

Mix the salad dressing, cream, sugar and vinegar until smooth and then mix into the broccoli mixture.

Broccoli salad

Lentil Salad

This tastes better than you would think.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup green lentils
3 cups water
4 or 5 green onions
1 lemon
6 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
sea salt

 Garlic, scallions, lentils, lemon

Cook lentils in the water about 20 minutes, then drain. Set aside to cool. Add the green onions and garlic and stir.

Cooked lentils with chopped scallion & garlic

Squeeze the lemon. Mix the lemon, oil and thyme and add to lentil mixture. Salt with the sea salt to taste.

Lentil salad

Other Cold Plate Stuff

Some of our favorite pickles, including the garlic dills we made last fall using some of our little cucumbers, as well as rolls to have with butter.

Pickles & rolls

Cold plates

Reviews/Comments

Like a summer picnic. Let's review separately (Molly will love this):

Potato salad:
Me: 10
Laura: 8

Broccoli salad:
Me:10
Laura:10
Missy: 9

Lentil salad: 
Me: 9
Laura: 8
Missy: 9

Overall rating: 
Me: 9
Laura: 9