SALAD WEEK also gave a chance to open a cookbook that hadn’t really been opened in quite some time—Nancy Silverton’s Twist of the Wrist—which emphasizes using canned/jarred ingredients to put together (relatively) elegant dishes in no time at all, and make some homemade dressings that were fun to have leftover in the door of the refrigerator. So without any further ado . . . (cue trumpets) . . . SALAD WEEK.
MONDAY—Vegan Nicoise
A relatively loose interpretation of the French classic featuring butter lettuce, boiled potato, grape tomato, French green beans, black olives and tapenade. Here’s the dressing:
3T sherry vinegar, 2 garlic cloves (grated), 1 shallot (grated), 1/3c. olive oil, s+p
Blend the vinegar and solids, drizzle in the oil w/motor running. S+P to taste.
The salad was great, as the potatoes were separately tossed with tapenade, then everything else was dressed with the vinaigrette. The dressing was good but quite strong with raw garlic and raw shallot. Perhaps blanching each in the future might cut down on the bite (seems like too much work though). Otherwise, get some breathmints. Seriously.
TUESDAY—Zucchini Crudo w/ Hearts of Palm and Artichoke
This was a simple salad consisting of thinly sliced raw zucchini, a jar of hearts of palm (sliced thinly lengthwise), a jar of marinated artichoke hearts, some marinated mushrooms from the supermarket salad bar, parsley, and chopped lettuce as a base.
The dressing was simply olive oil, fresh lemon, shallot, s+p.
The flavors were quite good but the thinly sliced zucchini gets the wet noodle effect going so texturally it is hard to keep choking it down. We chose to add the lettuce to have some crispy crunch but that didn’t really save it. Like I said, it tasted good but I wouldn’t make it again.
WEDNESDAY—Buffalo Chicken Salad
This was a former Manas Family Classic. This version uses Spicy Chik’n patties, romaine lettuce, tomato, cucumber, red onion, and shredded carrot. The dressing was simply vegan ranch and buffalo sauce.
The Chik’n patties got nice and crisp in a pan (I know, we did have to turn on the burners!) and worked perfectly with the cool greens and vegetables. Our vegan version was just as good as the “meaty” classic.
THURSDAY—Belgian Endive w/ almonds, apple and mustard dressing
We have a winner! This was quite good. A simple mixture of endive leaves, roasted almonds (we did ours in the toaster, then tossed them with olive oil and salt), thinly sliced green apple and assorted herbs (tarragon, chive and parsely—all from the backyard!).
The dressing was: ½ c. vegenaise, grated garlic, 3T whole grain mustard and 2t red wine vinegar.
It had a nice spice from the mustard, and it was quite nice to find another use for vegenaise as I am warming to the product very slowly (being a former Hellman’s addict). Bottomline, this salad was quick enough to throw together any night of the week but was so good I would have paid money for it at a restaurant (and only complained a little that it was overpriced!)
FRIDAY—Southwestern Caesar
We’ve made vegan Caesar dressing before, using silken tofu, and it was pretty good. We found a creamy avocado dressing for this one so I suppose calling the salad a Caesar is a loose interpretation. In any case the salad had romaine lettuce, pickled jalapenos, avocado, tomato, scallion and black beans. The dressing was:
1c. cilantro, 1 avocado, 1/3c. lemon juice, 4 garlic, 2 shallot, ½ c. canola, 2T olive oil and s+p.
The dressing came out super creamy (let the blender run quite a while) and delicious. Having learned a lesson from earlier in the week the raw garlic and raw shallot amounts were scaled back some to lessen that raw bite. We found many more uses for the dressing and it was a great resource to have waiting in the refrigerator door.
So after a week of salads it seems a pretty safe bet that we’ll do some more theme weeks. Also we will definitely slide these salads into regular rotation, save the zucchini crudo (that one needs some work). Until next time. . .
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