Chopped Salad

CHOPPED SALAD

I woke up last week, made my coffee, and opened the computer. I read somewhere online, perhaps on a blog I follow, that someone had made a chopped salad that week. Memories of a trip to Maui came up for me.  We had eaten in a pizza place that had the best chopped salad.  Romaine and vegetables chopped into 1/2 inch bits or so.  I think this particular salad had chopped hunks of cheddar cheese in it - I was still eating dairy at the time.  I decided to attempt a vegan chopped salad. Could I make something as delicious without dairy?  Yep.  I could.

I assembled a bunch of different things on my counter in preparation for chopping -  walnuts, cucumber, olives, apple, watermelon radish, carrots, orange and red bell pepper.

Garbanzo beans are the perfect size for a chopped salad and I just happened to have some that I had sprouted that week.  Sprouting beans is easy.  Soak them for 6 hours or so, rinse, and then put into a sprouting pan or even a colander with a plate underneath it and a towel to cover.  Rinse the beans a couple times a day and in about 2 days you have sprouted beans.  Sprouting creates a "live" food and supposedly "ups" the nutritional quality of the food.  The beans are a bit crunchy and great to add to salads or stir fry.  I think they are easier to digest when sprouted.

These sprouted garbanzo beans were a fabulous addition to the chopped salad and upped the ante for protein and fiber!

I had sprouted broccoli seed too.  I buy my sprouting seeds online at Mumm's Sprouting.  The link is: http://sprouting.com

You can visit their web site for lots of information on the how's and why's of sprouting.  If you are local to Santa Cruz you can also buy an amazing array of sprouts at the local Farmer's Market.  Sprouts are super nutritious and can be added to salads, sandwiches, wraps, topping a stir fry or soup, and you can juice them or add them to smoothies.

The broccoli sprouts added a slightly spicy taste to the chopped salad I made.

Talk about beautiful... have you ever cut into a watermelon radish?  They are stunning!  I sliced and chopped these into the salad for a bit of peppery flavor. Radishes are part of the Brassicaceae family, think cruciferous.  These are really important vegetables for us to eat.  Radishes contain a wide range of vitamins and minerals and have both anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties. They are have a high water content and are full of fiber, potassium, Vitamin C, folate, and a host of other minerals. And these happen to be so pretty!

Here are the chopped vegetables/fruit in our salad before I added the 2 heads of chopped lettuce.  

The salad before it was dressed.  This was a huge salad.  We  dressed half of it and put half in an air tight container in the fridge for the next day.  

I added chopped avocado after I separated the salad into what we were eating and what we were saving.  Avocado will turn brown if it is cut and refrigerated.  I found, though, that everything else, even the chopped apple, saved very nicely for the next day.  

I dressed the salad very simply.  I poured flax oil ( 2 - 3 tablespoons ) and red wine vinegar (3 - 4 tablespoons) onto the salad and added salt and pepper.  Tossed that baby up and that was all it needed.  There were so many amazing tastes in this salad - some bitter, sweet, salty, savory.  Each bite was a bit different because there was so much in this salad.  You can be creative and add whatever you love.  Some ideas:

chopped pressed tofu

snap peas

fresh peas

chopped cabbage (purple or green or Napa)

chopped kale

celery

cherry toms

almonds

sunflower seeds

hemp seeds

edamame

cooked quinoa

We ate the salad for lunch with Potage St. Germaine (green pea soup) on Saturday and then for lunch on Sunday with Avocado/Tempeh bacon sandwiches on Ezekiel bread with local sauerkraut and pea sprouts.

This is a salad full of goodness and wonder.  You have to chew and chew which is good for your digestion and slows you down.  Patience when eating is a good thing.