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Something Easy & Green Salad

Dec 052011

Clearly I’ve been MIA for the last month. I swear it’s not because I don’t love you. I do. And I definitely still love food. What I don’t love is the lack of time going on in my life right now.

The more honest truth is that I’m often in places where veg-friendly food is difficult to find, and I’m becoming more flexible with what I call a meal: French fries and salads, sure why not? Pizza sans cheese. Yep. A soy latte with a side of espresso? Ok.

I realize this isn’t the picture of healthy living, and I’m not telling you about this because I’m proud. It’s just the truth, and we all know how much I love that.

Let me paint you a picture: I’m often so busy that 4:30 pm rolls around and I realize I haven’t yet made it to the store for kale and other veggies. By that point I can’t even imagine chopping, blending or massaging. I want simple. I want salad thrown into a cardboard box. See what I mean about turning into one of those people I used to judge.

Now I get the appeal of pre-made food.

This week, however, my craving for kale was intense, and it had to be quenched, no matter how much I didn’t want t0 haul a&# to Whole Foods. In lieu of a complicated raw salad with a nut-based dressing and a million toppings, I just wanted something easy, something green, something simple. You just chop, rip, and massage.

Something Easy & Green Salad

(serves 1)

Ingredients:

1/2 head of dinosaur kale, torn into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup chopped cucumber
1 T capers, drained
1 avocado, chopped
1/4 cup dulse strips (the dried kind; they’ll soften up when mixed with the dressing)
1/4 cup walnuts or any other nut, chopped
Optional: sun-dried tomatoes, olives, carrots, sprouts, corn, beets etc.

Dressing: make your own favorite lemony dressing; mine was a combination of hemp oil, dulse flakes, lemon juice, and miso blended in the Vita-Mix for a few seconds.

How to: Place the kale and the dulse into a big bowl. Pour desired amount of dressing over the veggies and massage with your hands until well-coated and softened. Let sit for 5-10 minutes. Mix in other ingredients.

And there you have you have it. Easy. Minimal mess. No fuss. Much better than fries and a soy latte.

Controversy-Free Veggies: Lazy Sweet and Sour Cabbage

Salads, Sides 2 Responses »

Aug 162011

Last week’s restaurant…er…situation has made me a wee bit gun-shy when it comes to broaching any topic that could be deemed controversial in the blog world. And let me tell you, the blog world seems to have an insanely low tolerance for controversy. So while I can promise that nothing will deter me from opening my ~~big mouth~~ laptop, today we’re going to talk cabbage and hope no one will take offense. The worst thing you can say about cabbage is that you don’t like it. Or you only like it when the crispy leaves are shredded and doused in vegan mayo.

I hear ya.

Though I like cabbage, it’s one of those veggies that’s not only hard to eat a lot of, I often find myself stumped with what to do with it, especially when I’m stubbornly committed to eating raw.

For some reason, cabbage has been a frequent weekly visitor in my produce delivery box from Washington’s Green Grocer. Every single week I find the cabbage heads piling up in the back of my tiny fridge, staring at me with their oversized outer leaves, wondering if I’m ever going to get off my lazy a$$ and put them to good use. Continue reading »

Odd Woman Out: Zucchini Pasta Salad with Tangy Vinaigrette

Raw, Salads 4 Responses »

Jul 262011

I was fully prepared to present you will with pictures of glorious raw food, in all its vibrant greens and crispy leaves, peppered with stories of how D.C.’s oppressive heat makes me lazier than Louis Pug and completely unwilling to put in effort for a good meal when I noticed it: a yellow tomato in the midst of his orange friends, the rest round and plump and this one shaped like a bell, just hanging out wondering how they hell he ended up the odd man out.