#saladsamurai

[veganlatina]

Fighting the cold and a cold with #buffalo inspired hot spicy tomato soup with #caesarsalad kale topping // #recipedevelopment #showupforsalad #newcookbook #souplife #saladdays #saladlife #saladsamurai

[veganlatina]

Hurray it's today! Come to @orchardgrocer and get a spooky scary fall-a-licous salad by me, recipes spun from #saladsamurai just for you // I'll have a handful of copies for sale & signing too // stock up on vegan groceries, shoes, and yummy @modernlovebrooklyn pumpkin #vegansoftserve ice cream while you're at it // then head over to @mooshoes_nyc next door for #veganbloodymary and #veganshoes galore // portion of the proceeds will go to @lasasanctuary friends // pretty solid after work night of vegan antics, see you soon! (at Orchard Grocer)

[susiefoo]

Made the Backyard Buffalo Ranch Salad...sorta...tonight! Instead of using tofu I wrapped Gardein chik'n strips in rice paper, battered 'em then put 'em in the air-fryer before coating them with the Frank's-lemon juice-agave mixture the recipe calls for. Also, I didn't have any cabbage! Weird. I always have cabbage. Anyway, the strips were good! More of a pain in the ass to make than just cubing and pan-frying tofu so I won't do it often, but I'm glad I tried it! These "wings" could easily pass for the real deal if you're into that sort of trickery. I'm too honest for all that but I'd definitely serve these to omnis and I'll bet they'd love them! #vegan #vegansofig #veganizeit #veganairfryingenthusiasts #veganbuffalowings #gardein #ricepaper #franksredhotbuffalosauce #saladsamurai #backyardbuffaloranchcaesarsalad #anythingyoucaneaticaneatvegan (at Kook Corner)

[cookinginterrupted]

Cookbook review: Salad Samurai

At the beginning of the year I decided I neededto eat healthier after all of the Christmas sweets and started looking for new recipes and cookbooks to try out with great vegetarian recipes. I heard about this cookbook, Salad Samurai and decided to check it out from my local library. It turned out to be a great book with a wide range of salads divided by the seasons along with several other recipes for salad dressing and toppings. The recipes made salad that were substantial enough to by themselves for lunch or dinner and were also vegan and gluten free that made them feel even healthier. I tried out a couple of different recipes from the book.

Smokehouse Chickpeas 'N' Greens Salad

The first recipe I tried out was the spinach with barbecued chickpeas. I liked it because it was like a vegan version of the barbecued chicken salad that I like to make. The recipe had you make gluten free barbecue sauce from scratch for the chickpeas but overall it was still pretty simple and quick to make. The barbecue sauce calls for some vegan ingredients that you may not have on hand if you don’t cook vegan all the time like tamari and nutritional yeast. Tamari is like a gluten free version of soy sauce. I happen to have it because my mother in law is gluten free but I think you could use soy sauce in its place. I skipped the yeast all together. You also need liquid smoke and shouldn’t skip it. If you like to cook barbecue in general, it is a good ingredient to go out and buy. The raw onion was overwhelming to the salad so I think in the future I would pickle the onions instead or cut way back to maybe a half or quarter of an onion.

The smoked paprika salad dressing was awesome and I wound up making it again just to have on other mixed green salads. The maple syrup and apple cider vinegar provided a nice sweetness to counter the heat of the paprika. 

Arugula with roast butternut squash, shiitakes, and pear

The second recipe I made was one that had some of my favorite fall/winter items with the squash and pears in it. This salad was a little time intensive to prep the ingredients and roast the butternut squash and shiitakes but is well worth the time. The completed salad is very hearty and is a nice mix of sweetness from the squash and pears against the peppery arugula.

Gingery beets with lentils and greens

The final recipe I made from the book was a lentil salad instead of a all greens salad. For a long time I did not like beets until I discovered that there were golden and Chioggia beets that didn’t taste as strong as the regular red beets. Since that discovery I’ve been getting beets regularly at the farmers market and roasting them. This salad mixed in the roasted beets into cooked lentils along with a nice mix of herbs and a gingery dressing. In addition to that dressing there is another sauce made from tahini that also goes on the salad and in my opinion kind of overwhelms everything. I would skip the tahini and just let the gingery flavors shine through.