Purple Cabbage

I've seriously always wanted to cut up a purple cabbage... Okay, maybe not *always* but for a long time.  When I saw this salad, I knew I needed to make it.  OMG, so good.

I did almost everything she did.  My carrots weren't cut in as long of strips as hers, I just grated, but overall, I was pleased with how well I followed the recipe.

Here's the recipe in case her site ever goes down. Full credits to Cookie and Kate and Frugal Vegan! 

1 cup uncooked quinoa <-- slightly more than the original recipe (You can go with 3/4 if you prefer)
2 cups water <-- cook the quinoa with the water... these amounts worked well for us, I can't remember if it matched the package. I used the time amount listed on the package.
Set the quinoa aside to cool when done.

2 cups shredded purple cabbage
1 cup grated carrot
1 cup thinly sliced snow peas or sugar snap peas
¼ cup thinly sliced green onion

Dressing  
¼ cup smooth peanut butter 
3 tablespoons reduced-sodium tamari or soy sauce 
1 tablespoon maple syrup 
1 tablespoon rice vinegar 
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil 
Garlic / ginger, or both...  <-- deviated here...I used a little dried ginger and about 1/2 teaspoon dried garlic
½ lime (or lemon), juiced (about 1 ½ tablespoons)
Pinch of red pepper flakes

Mix all the veggies, quinoa, and dressing together.  I put on a few sprinkles of salt as I did this.

Garnish with chopped roasted and salted peanuts and fresh cilantro

Lettuce!

Lettuce from our garden!!!
I love our garden!

Tia made this!  Kira made the dressing!  Collaboration!

vegan umami

I'm not sure what to call this except, YUM, vegan umami!

It doesn't taste like bacon, but that's what One Ingredient Chef, who inspired the recipe, was trying to create. One Ingredient Chef made his version of "bacon" with tempeh. I tried the recipe his way and it was good, reminiscent of bacon, but a little too time consuming around here. I'm all about easy and fast!

I have a lot of these:

And decided they would be an excellent way to use his marinade, and that it would be a lot faster to not have to cut anything.

I used a pack of the soy curls. I put them in a 9x11 baking pan and spread them out. I poured a cup of boiling water on them and stirred them around. (Pour the water slowly and make sure it's not too much. You want to soften them but not soak them. If you need a little more, add it.) Sprinkle the soy curls with onion powder (about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon), and garlic powder (about the same amount).

Next pour on the following:

1/2  cup Maple Syrup
1/2 cup Tamari
1 tablespoon of smoked paprika

Stir and let soak in the yummy marinade for 10-15 minutes.

Cook, in a frying pan, for 10 - 15 minutes, while stirring well. (I cooked in two batches.) The edges of the soy curls will get crispy. Because the soy curls are pretty thick, they weren't going to get really crispy throughout.

While they were cooking I spooned on another teaspoon or two of smoked paprika. Mix the smoked paprika in well as you stir the soy curls.

The smoked paprika is really essential to make this tasty and a little more bacon-like. Make sure you get the smoked kind of paprika! I had to hunt for it in the store, but it was definitely worth the hunt.

 
Cooking!


 
And then I made a salad with a yummy umami topping (I ate mine this way).


And I made the other four people in the house a yummy sandwich--reminiscent of a BLT.

Rating: 5 out 5 of us liked this! It was a fun Sunday night dinner. I made a second batch the same way so we have leftovers for lunch!

Salad

 

It's my lunch pretty much every day when I'm at work. This time, I forgot peas. Dressing-wise, I don't eat dressing, but instead, salsa and guacamole.  I tend to pour balsamic vinegar on it and mix it all up. Super yummy! What's your favorite salad?

Lunch

 

We went to a VERY yummy vegan restaurant.   This was raw kale, spirulized celery root, and lots of other yummy veggies as a salad.  It had an almond cream dressing on it.  Super yum.

Here's a recipe I found a few years back that I love... (and need to make soon)

One thing I keep telling you, and it's true, I can't follow recipes. Part of the reason is that I don't always have the ingredients. In this case, I didn't have or the tools for the job.  I lacked the thing that spirals zucchini.  Lacking the right tools didn't stop me... I just chopped up the zucchini.  It turned out fine!  I also greatly reduced the oil.  This salad is raw vegan, based on this recipe, and it was yum.  (Yum is the term I use for recipes I really like.)

Ingredients:

chopped broccoli (4 small heads)
zucchini (2)
red pepper (1)
Carrots if you like them.  (I'm usually too lazy to chop up the carrots, so I just eat them dipped in the dressing.)

For the dressing:
3 tablespoons tamari (soy sauce)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Juice of 1 and 1/2 lemons
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
2 pinches black pepper
2 Tablespoons of olive oil (original recipe was a lot more, but it works and is good with as little as 2 tablespoons)

Let the veggies soak in the dressing at least 8 hours before eating.  As the veggies soak, the acidic lemon sort of "cooks" them and softens them. 

You can eat the veggies plain as a salad or over brown rice (or quinoa, or whatever your favorite grain is).  Enjoy!