Basil, potato and pumpkin salad

Basil, potato and pumpkin salad

There are just some things that never change, I find, and one of them is the comforting nature of potato salad. I used to love it as a kid, and still do. I also happen to love basil aioli, so here is a vegan mash of the two. It is moorish so beware.

 

3 large white potatoes, peeled and cubed

2 cups pumpkin, peeled and cubed

1/2 spanish onion, sliced finely

1/4 cup fresh  basil leaves

1 serve of tofu mayonnaise with 2 cups basil leaves processed into it.

 

This is creamy, potatoey goodness. Beautiful to add fresh spinach and pine nuts for an added freshness and texture.

 

Enjoy!

Spiced buckwheat and sweet potato herbed salad

 

Spiced buckwheat, sweet potato and beetroot salad

My sincere apologies for my extended absence from blogger land! I’ve missed you! It all began with a missing camera cord followed by a missing SD card… but that’s another story.

Today I bring to you a gem inspired by Gina, an amazing woman who catered for 25 of us at a non violent communication retreat in Byron recently. From Gina, I not only was reintroduced to the delightful dill but was introduced to whole buckwheat salads. Wow. Where have I been? Buckwheat is not wheat. It is gluten free and a whole food. It is not quite as protein rich as quinoa but nevertheless, an awesome food! And since Dave can’t do quinoa, stand by for more buckwheat in the future :). It is slightly nutty and holds it’s shape beautifully. And it does not go gluggy like rice can.

Because I’m out of practice I paid very little attention to quantities for this salad but you will get the idea. Make it to suit yourself. If my mother is reading this, for example, the cumin will be given a wide miss.

 

2 cups of whole buckwheat (cooked according to instructions. I, however, boiled mine in a spice mix of cumin, turmeric and ginger powder to give it a light spicing as well as a golden colour)

1 sweet potato, peeled, cubed and roasted

1 beetroot, peeled, cubed and roasted

1 spanish onion, peeled, cubed and roasted

Once these ingredients have cooled, toss together with:

cherry tomatoes, halved

brocollini, roughly chopped

Add 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill and 1/2 cup chopped fresh mint leaves.

Season with salt and pepper and toss either juice of 1 lemon or equivalent vinegar through the salad.

 

NB I think this would be sensational with the tomatoes lightly roasted, and adding in fresh baby spinach leaves. You could also whip up a dressing that includes garlic, mustard, lemon juice and oil if that suits (especially if you leave out the cumin and spices, it will require more flavour).

 

Enjoy!

 

Asian orange and sesame salad

Asian orange and sesame salad

One of the greatest things about living in a multicultural society is the cultural influences and diversity of food. As you know, I particularly love Asian food. I remember once travelling around the UK and absolutely craving Vietnamese or Thai food. Happily, it is so common for us that we use the basis of Asian cooking and make our own!

This salad is so refreshing, crunchy, fresh and delicious!

Ingredients:

1/2 cabbage

2 cups shredded baby spinach (or kale)

3 spring onions, finely sliced

1 carrot, julienned/grated

1-2 radishes, julienned

1 cup cashews

1 cup mint leaves

2 oranges, peeled, de-seeded and cut into segments

plus juice of 1 orange

1 T tamari

1 T sesame oil

1 garlic clove

2 T sesame seeds

2 T fried shallots

 

Slice salad ingredients, toss salad together and top with a dressing mixture of the orange juice, sesame oil, tamari and garlic. Sprinkle sesame seeds and shallots over the top. Enjoy!

Caramelized pumpkin, beetroot and hazelnut salad

Caramelized pumpkin, beetroot and hazelnut salad

Happy happy salady days in the warm weather (Australia)! Thankfully this is also a great salad for those snowed in at the moment because you can serve it as a warm salad which has that hearty feel as well.

Ingredients:

3 cups baby spinach

1 cup rocket leaves

2 cups  pumpkin pieces

1 cup  beetroot pieces

2 spanish onions, chopped roughly

1 cup roasted hazelnuts

1/2 cup slithered mint leaves

1/2 cup oil

Balsamic vinegar

Firstly, mix 1/2 cup grapeseed oil (or coconut) and 1/4 cup balsamic to toss the pumpkin pieces in. Then place them on a baking tray and put them in a 200 deg C oven. Toss the beetroot pieces in the balsamic and oil mix, and place them on a separate tray and roast. Thirdly, toss the chopped purple (spanish) onion through the mix and put it on a 3rd tray into the oven. Roast each until cooked through – note, the onions will cook through and caramelise first, the pumpkin pieces second, and the beetroot generally takes a LONG time depending on how large your pieces are. Test them with a fork to check they are soft. Then they are ready.

Once roasted and cooled, add to a bed of spinach leaves and rocket. Sprinkle roasted hazelnuts on top and chopped mint leaves. Drizzle any remaining oil/balsamic mix that remains over the top and enjoy!

It looks festive, doesn’t it!

Crunchy broccoli salad with basil cashew cream

Crunchy broccoli salad

This is an absolute delicious mix of crunchy, fresh, zingy, creamy and filling ingredients. It packs a bunch of nutrients into one bowl as well! Wow, we were so impressed with this, it’s now on our staple list.

We used this to serve 2 but it was too much! You could easily use a whole broccoli head, double the celery and tomatoes  and serve 4. The cashew cream certainly makes enough for 4.

Salad:

1/2 broccoli head, cut into florets

1 cup cooked brown rice

2 celery stalks, roughly chopped

1 cup baby spinach leaves, roughly chopped

1/2 cup dry roasted almonds, roughly chopped

1/4 cup toasted pine nuts

1/4 cup tamari pepitas

1/4 cup cherry tomatoes, halved

1 spring onion, diced

Place salad ingredients on the brown rice as a bed. Use pine nuts and pepitas as a topping. Add a large dollop of basil cashew cream dressing  (below) and top with fresh basil leaves, if desired.

Cashew cream:

1 cup raw cashews, soaked (at least 2 hours)

1 garlic clove

1 tsp mustard

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 T oil

1/4 cup water

1 cup fresh basil leaves

Puree the cashews and garlic. Add other ingredients and blend into a sauce.

Absolutely deliciously crunchy, fresh, and full of basil-y goodness 🙂

Crunchy broccoli salad with cashew basil cream

 

Cobb salad with creamy cilantro lime dressing

Plant-based Cobb salad

We are BACK from holidays and my, what an effort it is eating clean and plant based whilst travelling around the country. We basically had a huge tub of cut up veggies and hummus for lunch the majority of days. I am happy to be home and cooking our favourites again, and back into working up new fresh ideas.

It is supposed to be spring (you wouldn’t know it with the cooler weather at the moment) but the forecast is looking good so here’s a bright, fresh salad. Cobb salads are those ones usually filled with chicken and bacon and egg and cheese. It does seem odd but I guess it is all in the concept of lining up tasty little ingredients in pretty coloured lines – or layers – depending on how you make it 🙂 Work with whatever you have…colours, textures, taste. I had some beetroot ready to go and some black beans but they didn’t fit in the end and I decided the flavours didn’t blend with my dressing either so the above ingredients are the winners ;). Apple would work well, as would cucumber, spanish onion, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes etc. You could line up some rinsed and drained chickpeas or beans as well.

Ingredients:

Red butter lettuce

yellow and red capsicum

celery

broccoli

bean sprouts

sun dried tomatoes

avocado

Crispy tofu (see below)

Chop all salad ingredients and line up in rows.

For the tofu, I bought organic firm tofu and pressed it to squeeze the water out. Toss in buckwheat flour with salt, pepper and onion powder. Lightly fry until golden and crispy and toss in some tamari before removing from the pan. De-licious!

For the dressing:

Juice of 2 limes

1/4 cup coriander (cilantro)

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

1/2 avocado

2 T  water

1 garlic clove

1-2 tsp rice malt syrup

pinch salt & pepper

Blend together in a mini food processor and serve over salad.

Healthy peanut noodle salad

Healthy peanut noodle salad

SUCH a lovely, light healthy lunch. Or a main meal for dinner. Given that I have a love-hate relationship with lunchtimes, this one works well for me. It is quick, easy and healthy. And anything that has a peanuts/satay feel to it is a win for me. If you can’t do peanuts, you could always substitute in another nut butter and I’m sure it would be just as delicious.

There are so many substitute options to this salad it’s ridiculous so make it your own! You could make it with pasta noodles if you prefer or soba noodles. But here is what I did:

Ingredients:

Rice vermicelli noodles, soaked in boiling water and drained

Broccoli

Carrot, finely sliced

Celery, finely sliced

Cucumber, sliced using a peeler to make slithers

Spanish onion, finely sliced

cashews

Handfuls of chopped fresh mint, coriander and spring onions.

Toss the noodles, salad ingredients and herbs together with the following sauce:

*NB. The water content in the sauce is important to keep, as tossing the sauce through the noodles will prevent them from sticking together.

Peanut sauce:

1 spanish (purple/sweet) onion, finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon minced ginger (or ground)
3 T peanut butter (100% peanuts. You could easily just process peanuts until smooth as an alternative)
2 T  soy sauce
2 T rice bran or coconut oil
1 tsp rice syrup
1 tsp sesame oil
juice of 1 lime

Whisk together.

‘Fatoosh’ salad

Fatoosh salad

After school one day my eldest and I were watching “Good chef, bad chef” making a Fatoosh salad which is a Lebanese salad. To my surprise he excitedly said “MUM can we have THAT?”. Surreeee…. so we did 😛 Well, this is my version of it.

1 baby cos, roughly chopped

1 lebanese cucumber, chopped

1/2 red capsicum, chopped

1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes, halved

2 radishes, finely sliced

2 spring onions, diced

1/2 bunch dill, chopped

1/2 bunch mint, chopped

1 T sumac

1 lemon, juiced

Construct the salad ingredients and sprinkle sumac and lemon juice over the top.

In the mean time,

mash together fresh oregano, dried oregano, salt, 1/2 clove garlic, oil and sesame seeds and brush over 2 mountain bread wraps.

Bake at 180 deg c until brown and crispy. Break the crispy flat bread over the salad (or leave off if you are gluten intolerant).

The sesame seeds fall all over the salad when breaking the flat bread. This is such a delicious, zesty salad. I adore sumac as a spice, and I hope you love it too! The sumac is the making of this salad (that, and the divine crunchy tasty crispbread) so make sure you go out and get some sumac before attempting this one 🙂

Mayonnaise (the plant based way) and a waldorf(ish) salad

Mayonnaise – the plant based way

Unbelievable but true. Here is a delicious vegan mayonnaise. I’ve researched this, I promise. And the best recipe yet goes to Veggieful: very impressive. And here’s my version of their version! It really is STUNNING.  And even if you are not vegan, you will love this healthy tasty mayonnaise. (I promise there is nothing about it that tastes soy or tofu ish!).

300g silken tofu (use organic so it’s non GMO)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tspns rice syrup
1 diced garlic clove
3 tspns dijon mustard
1 Tblspn  oil
1 Tblspn apple cider vinegar

Squeeze of lemon.

Add all ingredients into a blender and blend away. Refrigerate for a couple of hours so that it thickens up a little.

Seriously. This is so yummy I kept eating it off the spoon before it even made it to the fridge!

I actually wasn’t sure what to do with mayonnaise. Hmmm….

So I made a waldorf(ish) salad.

Iceberg lettuce

Green apple, chopped

cucumber, chopped

snow peas, chopped

Avocado slices on top

and….it’s supposed to be walnuts (but I didn’t have any so I used almonds and cashews)

Toss it with the mayonnaise – delicious lunch!

Shredded rainbow salad

Today Dave said he felt like having something for dinner that is raw and shredded. So we got to thinking about the things we could shred in the food processor and whallaa! It’s amazing how quickly a food processor can create dinner 🙂

1 beetroot, peeled

2 carrots, peeled

1/4 savoy cabbage, outer leaves removed

1 lebanese cucumber

1 apple (cored)

Fresh herbs – coriander, spring onions and mint were mine of choice

Place the beetroot, carrots, cabbage, apple and cucumber through the food processor shredding blade. Easy done!

Finely chop herbs and add on top.

Make a quick dressing of:

2 T apple cider vinegar

1 T plain soy or coconut yoghurt

1 T wholegrain mustard

1 T sumac

salt and pepper

Mix together and toss through the shredded salad.

Lovely, nutritious, fresh and cleansing! Thanks to shutterbean for the recipe.

Pomegranate and pistachio salad with orange and herbs

Pomegranate and pistachio salad

That’s a long name isn’t it. Let’s face it, there’s a lot that is worth mentioning in this salad! It totally made my day! Divine, zesty yumminess. And it looks so beautiful with the red pomegranate seeds, the green pistachios and orange…well…orange!

Our boys call pomegranate seeds “jelly beans”. Given that they have never had jelly beans it’s kind of a funny concept. But they love these little zingy seeds. Pomegranates are called a ‘super fruit’ by the way and are said to have three times more antioxidants than green tea (Antioxidants repair damaged body cells). So all in all…get into it 🙂

If you are looking for oranges in Australia at the moment, just be mindful of where they come from. I’ve seen a lot of oranges from the US being sold and I struggle to understand this, given our huge citrus industry here. Oranges lose their vitamin C rapidly after being picked from a tree so don’t think that US oranges that have had to travel so far are going to be much good to you.

Our Foodland sells organic oranges from Loxton, SA. I figure that’s a great option if you don’t have an orange tree, that is!

Ingredients:

Mixed lettuce leaf mix

1 handful snow pea sprouts

1 baby cucumber, sliced

2 oranges, sliced

1 pomegranate seeds (wear an apron and bang it with a wooden spoon and they fall out nicely. Beware of splatters!)

1/4 purple/sweet onion, sliced finely

chopped dill

chopped coriander

chopped italian parsley

chopped mint (Yes, all these fresh herbs are SO worth it! I especially love the dill in this.)

1 cup shelled pistachios, lightly chopped

Oh, how I love this salad. Lightly toss your salad together and dress with:

Juice of 1 orange

2 T red wine vinegar

2 tsp rice syrup
Thanks to the BBC for the lovely idea. This salad is a keeper!

Power on lentil salad

Power on lentil salad

Today I caught the thought going through my head “I’m going to have a treat, that will help me feel better”. Sneaky thought. Thankfully some mindfulness is paying off because sugar etc *insert said treat* does not actually help anyone feel better. It’s an emotional myth. So…what would? What is my body saying and what do I need?

Never in my life would I have expected a lentil salad to be the answer but stranger things have happened. And guess what, it DID give me the boost I needed. This salad is so full of goodness you will power on through whatever is in your way in a day. It is zingy, flavoursome and wholesome. Even if you think you’re not a lentil/bean eater, try this salad first before deciding! (Although that does not apply to you who have serious dietary issues and can’t do beans and lentils!).

1 tin brown lentils, rinsed

1 tin four bean mix, rinsed

1/2 purple onion, finely diced

1/2 cucumber, diced

1/2 cup diced green beans

2 large tomatoes, diced

1/2 bunch of coriander, chopped

1/2 bunch flat leaf (Italian) parsley, chopped
Mix together and drizzle apple cider vinegar on top. Add a sprinkle of salt, pepper, dried garlic granules and dried chilli flakes.

Absolutely.delicious!

*Probably if you wish to make the meal a complete protein meal, it would be good to add in nuts/seeds. I didn’t. But it’s a good bit of info to add on 😉

Super everything salad

Hope you all had a great Easter! Here’s a great cleanser to help us all get back on track after what no doubt, was a less than perfect eating weekend 🙂 This salad has a little bit of everything… So “Super everything salad” sounds pretty good. Essentially, it is a roast veg salad with lentils, pine nuts, greens and a guacamole dressing. It’s lovely!

1 cup roast pumpkin cubes

3 tomatoes, cut into wedges and roasted

1 spanish onion, cut into wedges and roasted

5 garlic cloves, roasted (with skins on to keep them moist)

3 mushrooms, chopped and roasted

* I roasted these ingredients after tossing them in a little oil, seasoning and balsamic vinegar.

Once cooled, add to a bed of:

rocket and baby spinach

pine nuts (toasted if you wish)

cooked (and cooled) brown lentils (or a rinsed tin of lentils)

To dress this salad, blend:

1 avocado

juice of 1 lemon juice

2 T  apple cider vinegar

Salt and pepper

Top with a fresh cup of chopped coriander! Delish!

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Asian-slaw with peanut dressing

There are some things that just speak comfort and childhood to me, and coleslaw must be one of them! Having said that, I don’t do the mayo thing these days and this is a great way to do it Asian style with peanuts and corriander, yum!

I found it at Once Upon A Chef (whose photo puts mine to total shame 🙂 ) and I have only altered it a little re the dressing. Awesome recipe – and his looks even better with endamame (I have no idea what these are, but I want some!!)

Anyhow….

Finely chop some cabbage (I have used purple and wombok here) and carrots (best julienned but I was being lazy. They are thinly done via the food processor though so still are quite light).

Add in capsicum, spring onions (eschallots), peanuts and coriander. And the dressing, ohh the dressing 🙂

• 1 T Agave
• 1/4 cup rice bran oil
• 1 T rice wine vinegar
• 1 T soy sauce
• 1 tsp Asian sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon nut spread (we use brazil, cashew and almond spread from the health shop. No additives, just nuts.).
• 1 tsp minced fresh ginger
• 1 garlic clove, minced

Mix away, and drizzle over the salad. Delish!

Of course if you have a peanut allergy, substitute the peanuts for cashews – or leave them out altogether. I used a healthy nut spread but you could use peanut butter for those who can and prefer.

Asian style mega salad

We were having on of *those* nights and figured today was a day for takeaway. After getting the kids into bed and flicking through the menus, Dave realised that takeaway options really aren’t going to be anywhere near as healthy or tasty as something we would make :).

So this is what he came up with! A colourful, extremely tasty, healthy crunchy salad with a delicious Asian dressing.

What is in the salad you ask?

Mixed leaf lettuce

wombok cabbage

Capsicum – red and yellow

Carrot – slithered

Brocolli – little florets

Almonds

Fried shallots

Dressing:

2 cloves garlic, minced

2cm of ginger, minced

1 leek, diced

1/4 tsp ground chilli

1 T dark soy sauce

1 tsp tamarind paste

1 tsp rice malt syrup

Juice of half an orange

1 t rice wine vinegar (splash of)

Saute the garlic, ginger, leek and chilli in coconut oil. Add in the remaining ingredients and simmer until slightly reduced. Add in some water until you are happy with the consistency of the dressing.

This is a seriously lovely salad. Dave has told me the ingredients of the dressing but I have to say, he’s like me and makes up recipes so feel free to alter it to whatever suits your tastes and requirements. Enjoy!