I tend to think of salads as being boring. After all, aren’t they what you eat before a meal to feel better about the decadent meal that you’re about to have?
They’re typically a starter or side course when eating out that’s drenched in bulk ranch dressing. Or the thing that you eat to make you feel better about eating an enormous amount of gravy for Thanksgiving. Maybe one of those sides drenched in mayonnaise during a summer barbecue? That ones that are really just mayonnaise disguised as something edible!?
While ranch drenched calorie drain and I don’t even know if we can legitimately call ambrosia or potato salad an actual salad, I do in fact eat a lot of salads! I just don’t make what you would typically consider a side or appetizer dish.
Generally speaking, a salad is any cold dish that’s served with a dressing or dip.
Knowing me, this oftentimes means making something that’s large enough to be a meal in and of itself. It’s packed with enough protein to be filling and flavorful enough to be worth it.
Ordinarily I would make quinoa with sweet potatoes. Occasionally I’ll toss in a purple potato or baby potato or russet potato if I’m getting real desperate! But, today the grocery store was almost entirely out of sweet potatoes. So, I improvised with their slightly more […]
I have been on a spinach kick lately. I blame the bulk bags of spinach at Costco… But spinach keeps for a decent amount of time and is just an unbeatable price. Only, now I keep finding myself with so much spinach that it is […]
It is brussel sprout season. Every year I see the brussel sprouts, still attached to the stalk, like some magical mystical ingredient that I have absolutely no idea what to do with! And every now and then I pick something up. I stare at it […]
I made Quinoa w/ Sweet Potatoes & Spinach last week. I notably was out of ginger and just decided to go for it! Which was not at all disappointing. Actually incredibly delicious. But, after an actually needed grocery store run, I have replenished my ginger supply! […]
I have been making various types of Ethiopian-inspired lentils with sautéed spinach and Japanese-inspired quinoa spinach for weeks, now. And it finally dawned on me that I should just combine them together and make spinach quinoa in one dish! I have one problem, though. I […]
This Japanese quinoa is inspired by a plethora of dishes. Tamari is similar to soy sauce, without the added gluten and usually quite as much salt. They make easy substitutions for one another and we commonly see them both paired with sushi. Tamari and rice […]
This black lentil salad recipe is an amalgam of cooking dilemmas or curiosities. I was thinking about making a vegetarian Doro Wat. Doro Wat is an Ethiopian chicken stew with hardboiled eggs, berbere, niter kibbeh (spiced clarified butter), and sometimes tomato paste. Which isn’t quite […]
I have had quite a difficult time finding good bulk lentils. Especially in rural Wisconsin. So, I’ve been slowly going through them until there is almost nothing left! And I have finally reached the end of my pantry and must do something with the black […]
Ethiopian salmon is far from a traditional meal. Salmon are more commonly found in the North Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. And certainly aren’t as widely associated with a landlocked country in the horn of Africa! But I grew up in Oregon and first found a […]
I very much enjoy a traditional Ethiopian plate. It’s great to get everyone together over a communal group of dishes and injera. Injera is an Ethiopian flatbread made out of teff. You tend to eat it with your hands and rip off pieces of injera […]
