Munchie Monday: Easy Black Bean Salad

Lately I have been thinking salad.  Mostly we have been eating green salads but I saw a black bean salad on Forks Over Knives that looked good.

Today I made that salad. I had meant to make it for a potluck supper on Friday night but I had forgotten to get a lime so today I fixed that!  I made a couple of changes as follows:

Easy Black Bean Salad

2 16-ounce cans of black beans--drain and rinse very well
1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved
1 16-ounce package super sweet frozen corn, thawed
1/2 Vidalia onion, finely diced
3 stalks celery, finely diced
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped in the Ninja Express Chopper
1/2 lime, juiced
3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar


Place everything in a large bowl in the order given and gently toss.  Serve.  Does not need salt, surprisingly.

Dear One asked what it was so I delineated the recipe.  He made a face but took a small serving. I had a large serving!  :-) After he had eaten his small serving he served himself another serving, a little larger!  Surprise, surprise!  I really did not expect that from him.  This made me happy.  You can tell it really is good.

Munchie Monday: Quick and Easy Southwestern Salad

We plan to have a potluck lunch in the office the Wednesday after Transfers.  This is a nice idea.  We put the phone on answering machine for half an hour (unless SOMEONE forgets to turn it back on when lunch is over...it could happen....) and just enjoy each other's company and yummy food.

This time we had hot Costco pizza,  chicken pasta salad,  cut fruit, bagels with three kinds of cream cheese (have you ever had cinnamon and brown sugar?  Deathly...), a gorgeous red velvet cake with ganache and lovely flower decorations on top and dribbling down the sides, and Southwestern Salad.

This salad was basically a can of red beans, drained and rinsed, a can of whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed,  half a sweet onion very finely diced, and one red bell pepper, finely diced.

All these were put into a large bowl and covered with Southwestern Dressing.  To make this the quickest and easiest, you can buy that sort of salad dressing. 

Pour the dressing over the salad ingredients and let it marinate overnight.  When ready to serve, bring it to the table with a big bowl of chopped greens for people to put on their plates then put a scoop of the vegetable mixture on top, then more dressing, if desired.  It was pretty good salad.  Don't ask Dear One, though, because he though it was too iffy to try.  No problem.  More for the rest of us.

The dressing I made:

All these ingredients I added to our blender:
1 cup loosely packed cilantro, including stems
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 cloves garlic
2 Tablespoons lime juice
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
A little coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Fortunately I tasted it.  Not great, but I was committed to it since I was tired and did not want to go out to the store late at night--well, it was about 8 PM.  That is too late to go out to the store.  For me. 

Because I was unsure if there would be enough dressing, I added another half cup yogurt.  Because this was also so acidic I also added, horror of horrors, one Tablespoon of sugar.  Made all the difference.

It was good enough to take to the potluck.  People said nice things, but then, people always say nice things. Mostly.  I was not embarrassed by it, and because there were only six of us, there was leftover food to take home. I have enjoyed it!

Munchie Monday: Kale Salad, a New Rub!

Kale salad is one of my favorites: kale, sweet onions, broccoli, and celery.  I had not made any in a while so was excited to get it together enough to make a big batch. I was rather in a hurry so, after chopping the kale and putting it in the bowl, I only massaged the kale for about a minute.  Two minutes at the most.  Bad idea!

When it came time to eat a bowl of salad, I found it to be bitter.  Well, kale really is a bitter herb, but this was the first time it had tasted bitter to me.  I had a LOT of it.  What to do...!

Well, this morning I put the cast iron skillet on the stove and started it heating on medium heat.  When it was sort of hot I added a tablespoon of olive oil then filled the pan with kale salad.  Sautéed salad here we come!  After stirring for a moment to get a tiny smidgeon of olive oil on as much of the salad as possible, I put on the cover and walked away to do something else.  In about five minutes I came back, stirred it again, then put the cover back on and shut off the electric burner.

In five more minutes this is what I found:

This is so good and the bitter is gone, or if not gone, at least manageable.  Love kale!  So good for our bodies.  So good for our souls!  I mean, after all, I don't know ANY healthy-eating expert who doesn't think we should be pouring kale down our gullets on a regular basis.  Sautéed kale may be the thing for us all!

Food Friday: Egg Salad on Vacation

When you use your Instant Pot to hard boil a dozen or more eggs the day before vacation, what do you do?  Why, you take the eggs with you in the ice chest.  Then what do you do?

At the beginning of the week we had a few eggs chopped into green salad.  After that we ate out a couple of lunches so the eggs were aging in the refrigerator so something had to be done.

This morning I peeled the eggs, rinsed off the egg shells, then chopped the eggs on the cutting board I had purchased at Goodwill thrift store (which was conveniently close right across the street from our resort!!) and tossed them into a bowl.  I mashed them up somewhat with a fork. We had some celery and some small onions so I chopped both celery and onion and tossed into the bowl.  Next I squirted in a couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise,  at least the same amount of mustard, and a good 2-3 tablespoons of sweet pickle relish.

After stirring everything together I tasted it.  Too bland, SO  I added in some Garden Harvest Seasoning.  Quite a bit, actually.  After blending well I scooped some onto a nice crispy red leaf lettuce leaf, folded it over, and ate it.

That was a mistake...to eat it right then.  The harvest seasoning actually needs to soften up in the egg salad overnight.  If not, you feel the "grit" in your teeth.  That really puts you off the egg salad. 

However...the next morning things were different.  There was no grit.  Sadly, we still needed tiny bit of salt to make this fun to eat.

Tomorrow I plant to scoop some into a luscious tomato for lunch. Or maybe breakfast...

Food Friday: More Kale Salad

Earlier I think I shared a kale salad recipe.  Probably more than once, but here is another iteration.  I really do love kale salad. I also feel so virtuous when I eat it.  AND the scales thank me.

One bunch lacinato/tuscan/dinosaur kale
One large head fresh broccoli
One bunch celery
One/half large sweet onion, sliced thin
Pitted Greek olives, cut in half
Hummus
Tajin Classico

Wash the kale.  Dry it.  Strip the leaves off the stems.  Chop them into bite-sized pieces and put into a LARGE bowl

Wash the broccoli.  Shake off the water.  Cut the florets off the stem and chop into your favorite bite-sized pieces and toss onto the kale in the bowl.

Remove the ribs from the celery bunch.  Wash well then cut off any stem pieces that offend you.  Slice fine and add to the bowl.

Remove the outer paper from the sweet onion.    Cut the onion in have from pole to pole, then lay it flat side down on your cutting surface and thinly slice.  Cut the slices in half or thirds and toss on top of your other vegetables.

Toss the vegetables until they are well interspersed with one another.  Take out a large handful and place in an individual serving bowl.  The remaining salad should be tightly covered and put into the refrigerator for the next meal.  I eat this 2-3 times a day.

On the top of the individual serving of salad toss in a few cut Greek olives, a couple of Tablespoons of your favorite hummus and a sprinkle of Tajin Classico.  Stir well and enjoy.

Sometimes I add a little steamed flaked fish.  Sometimes some chopped tomato or carrots or cabbage.

Yummy.

Food Friday: Vegetable Salad

The grocery trip while on vacation did not net the complete list of food items.  What we did find was:

Bag of vegetable salad (lettuce, radishes, carrots, garden peas, bell peppers)
Red bell pepper bagged individually
Broccoli crown
Bag of dried pinto beans

How I made this into food for several meals:

Opened the bag of pinto beans.  Sorted them into the insert basket (not the stainless steel liner bowl) for the Instant Pot.  Yes, I did bring the Instant Pot on vacation.  Rinsed the beans very well in the sink then placed the basket into the stainless steel liner bowl and covered the beans with 2-3 inches of water over the top.  Set this back into the Instant Pot and selected High Pressure and Adjusted the time to 45 minutes, put the cover on, and forgot about it.  I REALLY forgot about it.  When I paid attention again the beans have been on the warming cycle for more than two hours.  There is no question but what they were very well cooked, though remarkably, not mushy!  That was thrilling.

Using a leftover foil salad container from a previous salad my sister had brought with some pizza the other night, I placed 1/3 of the vegetable salad--I think it was by Dole--quite a lot of broccoli florets, 1/3 of the red bell pepper, diced, the last tomato chopped up,  half a cup of the cooked pinto beans, a little of the Spicy Peanut Sauce and a few shakes of Tajin Classico.  I did the best I could to toss it, but it was a pretty full container.  Another trip out at a Dollar Tree I found a large salad bowl with cover.  I realized when we got back to the unit that I should have gotten a container for the beans since I may not finish them before we are ready to go home...

Anyway, it was a delicious salad and made a wonderful breakfast.  I can make two more like it.

Food Friday: Best Quick Fruit Salad Ever!

Recently I stayed with a friend.  She made a wonderful fruit salad.  This is what she used:

red seedless grapes
red raspberries
blueberries
mandarin orange sections

Quick.  Easy. Delicious!  So refreshing.  The bowl I made disappeared like a flash!  It is nice to make popular food once in a while.

Munchie Monday: Breakfast Salad Today!

Don't you just love a great breakfast salad?!  I do.  You may not but there is nothing like starting the day with some good vegetables and healthy protein.

This is what I had in my breakfast salad:

2 cups iceberg/carrots/cabbage lettuce mixture
2 cups spring lettuce and baby spinach
1/2 cups chick peas
1/8 of a red onion, sliced thinly
1 carrot, sliced
1 celery rib, sliced
2 Tablespoons Spicy Peanut Salad Dressing

What I did:

Chopped the greens.  Added the chopped greens to a large bowl.  Added the remaining vegetables then topped with the salad dressing.  Stirred it all up.  Ate it with pleasure and a certain amount of feeling virtous as I realized it was healthier than many breakfasts I have had.

Doesn't that look pretty?! And yummy!  The only glitch was that the red onion happened to be rather spicy this time.  I gave the last few shreds to the white-tail deer who frequent our back yard.

Food Friday: Breakfast Salad

Yesterday I woke feeling like salad.  So I made one.  For breakfast.  It was a large salad (Dr. Michael Greger's  Daily Dozen App calls for a large salad every day.) No,  actually it was a gigantic salad.

This is what was in it:

2 handfuls of chopped romaine lettuce
1 very large handful baby arugula
1 medium head of raw broccoli chopped, including stem
1/4 small red onion finely sliced
1/3 cup chopped cooked red beets (don't I feel virtuous about eating those!!!)
1/2 cup cooked garbanzo beans
Some Vidalia Viniagrette salad dressing

I forgot the ground flaxseed meal I planned to put on top.

I tossed all this together and managed to eat it all.  I woke up this morning 3 pounds lighter!!  That may have had something to do with the fact that I ate one medium/large baked-in-the-microwave russett potato and one Tofurky kielbasa link (seasoned with a little General Tso's sauce) for my other meal for the day.  Plus a good bit of water.

This was Day One of my 10-day goal of eating totally plant-based foods.  We will see if I can get beyond the first day.  Not as easy as one might expect.

The idea for the 10-Day plant-based eating came this time from Dr. McDougall's webpage.   If you go to this page and look at the column on the right you will see 10-Day Meal Plan.  It is the same thing he uses in his very expensive residential program.  Click on that plan and download a PDF of his recipes.  They mostly seem reasonable to me, though because they are different from our "usual" I will probably have trouble selling them to the local family.  Oh well. I can become healthier....

Breakfast Salad!  Yummy.