Basil Cashew Mayo

I have this habit of leaving my gym bag pockets unzipped.  It's partly because I'm lazy, but it's also partly because I have never had anything fall out so I never had incentive to zip them up.  Well, that was until two weeks ago when I lost my eyeliner.  And since it was a bit pricey, I am sure you can imagine how excited I was when I found it in my yard a few days ago.  Even though it was a bit weathered and the brand name had been rubbed off, it still worked great.

However, this morning upon closer inspection of the weathered brand name, I discovered that this was not actually my eyeliner.  Lesson learned: zip your gym bag and don't use eyeliner you find in your yard. 

Another important lesson I learned this week is how to make amazingly creamy mayo -- without the eggs or added oils!  So let's get to work!

I've been craving a creamy spread for sandwiches this week so I went searching for healthier mayo options.  This mayo uses silken tofu and cashews for a creamy, oil-free and egg-free spread that will delight your tastebuds and amp up any cold sandwich.  Add basil or your favorite herbs for an extra boost of summer delight.

Recipe submitted to Wellness Weekend

Basil Cashew Mayo
Adapted from Fat Free Vegan
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

1/2 block organic firm silken tofu
1/3 cup raw cashews
1/2 teaspoon spicy brown mustard
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
sea salt to taste
1/4 cup loosely packed basil leaves

Drain water from tofu and place tofu, cashews, mustard, lemon juice, garlic powder, and salt in a high-speed blender or food processor.  Blend at highest speed until light and creamy.  Add the basil and blend again.  Seal tightly and keep refrigerated. Stir before each use.

Southwest Salad with Jalapeno Avocado Lime Dressing

It's time to kick off summer.  It's time to put your hair in a ponytail, pull out the beach towels, and get out in the sun.  It's time for watermelon slices, corn on the cob, and picnics.  I think this also means it's time for picnic foods... easy dishes that you can share with friends and family and quick go-to meals that you can pack for yourself regardless of where you are headed.  No matter what you are up to this summer, this salad fits the bill.  

We start with a hearty bed of fresh greens and top it with corn, ripe tomatoes, black beans, bell peppers, and a spicy-sweet jalapeno avocado lime dressing.  Flax seed crackers are completely optional, but they add a fun crunch and are perfect for easy and healthy snacks (goodbye tortilla chips!).  What are you waiting for?  Make this salad and get out there!

This dressing is super simple: water, agave nectar, avocado, lime juice, jalapeno, garlic and salt. Ingredients get combined in a blender and in less than one minute you have an incredibly tasty dressing that is free of added oils!

This salad is gluten-free and can be made completely raw by substituting the cooked black beans for sprouted beans or lentils. Feel free to top it with other goodies like fresh salsa, pico de gallo, or avocado slices.

Southwest Salad
Serves 4

6 cups fresh salad greens
1 bell pepper, diced
2 1/2 cups cooked black beans
1 cup corn kernels (raw or cooked)
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced

Divide ingredients among four plates.  Drizzle salad with dressing and serve with flax chips, if desired.

Jalapeno Avocado Lime Dressing:
Makes 1 1/4 cups

1 avocado, pitted and skinned
1 cup water
juice from 1/2 lime
1 garlic clove
1 jalapeno pepper, de-seeded
1 tablespoon agave nectar
1 pinch salt

Add ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth.

Flax Chips
Adapted from Raw Food by Erica Palmcrantz
Makes 20 - 30 chips

1 1/2 cups flaxseed
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup water
juice from 1/2 lime
1 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon paprika
small pinch chile powder
1 teaspoon sea salt

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flaxseed, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds to the water.  Add more water if needed to achieve an oatmeal-like consistency.

Add the lime juice, cumin, paprika, chile powder and salt and thoroughly mix by hand.

Spread flax mixture flat onto a dehydrator tray lined with a Teflex/ParraFlex sheet. (It will take 3 - 4 trays total).  Dehydrate at 115 degrees F for about 8 - 12 hours, until crispy. Crackers are done with they are crispy and easy to break apart into pieces.  Store in a well-sealed container and they will last for several weeks, if not longer. 

(Note: some readers have asked about the dehydrator I use. I have a 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator that I bought three years ago and absolutely love. It's the perfect size for making several batches of raw goodies at once.)

Sweet & Tangy Mango Salad Dressing

I know that I am a creature of habit.  I like eating the same thing for breakfast every morning.  I like visiting the farmer's market every weekend.  I like going to the gym every day.  I like eating healthy.  I like listening to the same music (hello Cyndi Lauper playlist).  I like wearing the same comfy jeans, the same jewelry, and the same shoes.  And now that my hair just recently got long enough to put it in a ponytail, it's probably going to stay that way until the end of summer.

But sometimes it's important to break those habits.  To try something new for breakfast.  To wear skinny jeans.  To skip the gym and eat cupcakes instead.  And to buy fruit from the grocery store that is completely wrong for your geographic location and climate.  Hello mangos...

This dressing was inspired by the recent mango sale at Whole Foods.  I've been resisting for the past few weeks and finally had to give in and indulge myself.  I have to say that I'm glad I did.  If we never broke our habits life wouldn't be as fun.  And there certainly wouldn't be mango dressing.

I love that this dressing only involves four ingredients and takes less than three minutes to make.  This one is creamy, rich, and gets a mellow sweetness from the mango.  I found that it tends to lose the mustard flavor if sitting in the fridge for several days so I will sometimes add a bit more mustard just before dressing the salad.  


Sweet and Tangy Mango Salad Dressing
Makes about 2.5 cups

Flesh from 2 ripe mangos (or about 2 cups if using frozen)
1/3 cup water
1/2 avocado, pitted and skinned
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon spicy brown mustard

Add ingredients to a blender.  Blend thoroughly.  Serve on fresh greens.

Kale Caesar Salad

I think my apartment is haunted. Some of my things have been showing up in really weird places lately and last night my bathroom light turned on by itself.  I'm not kidding.  I know that you will try and talk me into thinking that I just left the light on accidentally or that maybe my cat somehow learned to flip the switch.  No way Jose.  I'm not convinced.

In my ghost-paranoid sleep I got exactly 2.3 hours of sleep.  It was a bit of a rough night.  In order to keep myself from completely freaking out I decided to stay up the rest of the night and hide out in my kitchen.  Naturally, this led to me trying to figure out what to do with a loaf of day-old bread from the local bakery that was too amazing to toss out. What else can you do with day-old bread at 4 am than make warm, toasty croutons fresh from the oven?  These disappeared a little too quickly for my comfort, but luckily that was my fault and nothing paranormal.

So, my apartment is haunted.  And I learned to make croutons.  What is new in your world?

I've been on a big raw kick lately.  Lots of raw vegetables, raw salads, and raw salad dressings.  I was  excited this week at the prospect of making a raw kale caesar salad.  But then I decided that nothing could make a kale caesar salad better than fresh croutons.  Of course these croutons entirely defeated the purpose of making the salad dressing raw, but who am I to say what's what.  So, have your raw kale salad and eat your croutons too. 

Raw Caesar Dressing
Yield: 1 cup of dressing
Adapted from Choosing Raw

3/4 cup raw cashews, soaked several hours or overnight
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
juice from 2 lemons
1 pitted Medjool date
2 large stalks celery

2 - 3 raw garlic cloves
1 teaspoon kelp granules (optional)
1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Soak the raw cashews in plain water for several hours or overnight.  Drain water.  Add cashews to a food process or blender.  Add the additional ingredients and process/blend until smooth.  Add more water if necessary depending on desired consistency. 

Croutons

Inspired by Good Life Eats

2 cups bread cubes from day-old bread

2 teaspoons olive oil 

1/4 teaspoon dried or fresh thyme

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Spread bread cubes in a single layer on a baking sheet.  Brush with olive oil.  Sprinkle with thyme and garlic powder.  Toast bread for 5 minutes.  Flip croutons and toast for an additional 3 minutes.  

Note: your bread may require more or less cooking time depending on how old it is.  

Kale Caesar Salad

Serves 4

1 bunch of green curly kale, stems removed, torn into pieces

Raw Caesar dressing 

Croutons

Coarse black pepper to taste

Add 1/4 cup of dressing onto kale.  Massage dressing onto kale with your hands.  (This will help to soften the kale and keep it from being tough.) Add more dressing if desired.  (Note: there will be extra dressing left over.  Reserve this for additional salads.)  Top with croutons and serve. 

Apple Cider Vinaigrette

Thank goodness for spell check.  If it wasn't for spell check, I would never be able to spell words like recommendation, license, disastrous, judgment, and fluorescent.  And don't even get me started on vinaigrette.  You would think that for someone who has to use this word almost daily in their work that I would have learned how to spell it by now.  But no.  Vinegrettte?  Vineagrette??  Vinagarette?!  

How about I just wow you with some pretty pictures instead.

This is one of my favorite salad dressings to use in spring.  Usually by this time of year I am craving fresh, crisp salads and have a produce drawer full of slightly mushy apples.  Since I live in Washington, mushy apples just don't fly around here.  But this vinaigrette is pretty darn amazing.

This recipe is a bit tangy because of the apple cider vinegar and spicy mustard, but the apple juice and dates add some great natural sweetness to balance.  It can be stored in the refrigerator and will easily keep for at least two weeks.  Since the cold will cause the olive oil to solidify, be sure to pull it from the fridge a few minutes prior to using.  Enjoy it with any fresh greens, preferably while quizzing yourself on how to spell vinaigrette.


Apple Cider Vinaigrette
Makes 2 cups

1/2 cup 100% apple juice (preferably fresh)
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
3 cloves garlic
1 medium apple, peel and core
1 tablespoon spicy mustard
4 large medjool dates, pitted
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup extra virgin olive oil

Add apple juice, apple cider vinegar, garlic, apple, mustard, dates, and salt to a blender.  Blend until smooth.  With blender on low, add the olive oil in a thin stream.  Store in the refrigerator.

Green Goddess Salad Dressing

If I was ever entered into a vegan "hot dog" eating contest I would lose.  I would probably make it through one hot dog.  Then maybe half another.  Then I'd get a stomach ache and be voted out.

But, a salad eating contest?  Now that's a different story.
 
A few months ago I came up with this weird idea that I was going to eat a salad every day.  It was the beginning of spring and eating a salad just seemed like an easy way to get more raw, fresh veggies into my diet.  Now three months later, I'm hooked.

Every weekday I eat a salad for lunch and on the weekends, I eat a salad for dinner.  There have definitely been a few days where I missed my daily salad and I felt the difference.

Now, when I say "salad" I'm not talking about the kind of salad that has more fat than a Big Mac.  But, I'm also not talking about the weird "diet" salads with just lettuce and non-fat dressing.  In fact, I think those freak me out more. 

If you're really aiming to make a salad a meal I think it needs to have a few components.  I always make sure that mine have a good balance of fat and protein.  You want your salad dressing to have some fat in there so that you can absorb all of the good nutrients from the greens and vegetables you are eating.  Fat, in moderation, is a friend.

And you can't forget the protein.  I always make sure my salad has a couple of different kinds of beans and on occasion I'll add tempeh or tofu.  This is what will really turn your salad from a side dish to an entree.

For my salad dressing, I usually make a mix of vinegar and olive oil with fresh herbs, but I've been craving something a little creamier and different lately so I decided it was time to make some green goddess dressing.  I've seen lots of different versions of this dressing and it always seems to have a mix of herbs, oil, and lemon juice.  I added some avocado for a creamy texture and played around with different fresh herbs from my garden.  You can easily adapt this to your own version based on the herbs you have on hand.  

Green Goddess Dressing
Serves 2 - 4

Instructions:
1 avocado, skin removed and pitted
3 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup fresh parsley
10 basil leaves
1 small sprig of  mint
2 green onions
2 Tablespoons agave
1/4 cup oil
freshly ground black pepper and sea salt to taste

Ingredients:
Add the avocado, apple cider vinegar, water, lemon juice, garlic, herbs, onions, and agave to a food processor or blender.  While the blender or food processor is running, add the oil in a thin stream.  Blend until thoroughly mixed.  Add in salt and pepper to taste.