Thursday, March 12, 2009

Salad Days

Well, it's not quite spring yet. It's doing something between sleet and drizzle outside right now. But I'm so ready for warm weather foods — like salad! Tonight, I jumped the gun and created a delicious Seitan Chicken Anjou Salad for my cookbook:

It's my recipe for seitan chicken (served cold and cut into small bites), red Anjou pears, walnuts, and green onion over mixed greens with a balsamic pear vinegarette. Delicious!

When I make large dinner salads, I typically throw anything and everything in. Every vegetable, bean, and crunch topping (bacon bits, croutons, tortilla strips, crunchy noodles, whatever) I can find in my pantry or fridge. And while that's satisfying and very filling, sometimes it's nice to have a special salad with select ingredients that complement one another. It feels very gourmet and fancy.

On another note, I gave Celine's Butterscoth Pecan Cookies another shot tonight. This time, I cooked them for the recommended 10 minutes instead of my improvised 14 minutes. They came out chewy and perfect!

And thanks guys for your awesome smoothie suggestions. I'll be putting those to use for pre-workout snacks in the very near future!

19 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

Lovely salad!!

Glad that the cookie came out perfectly this time too!! I neeeeeed those butterscotch chips.

Anonymous said...

I love salads!!! as you can see from my blog...haha. I used to just throw everything I could find in there and now I love my combo.

Balsamic-Pear vinigrette?! I need that now!

Lisa said...

This is SO pretty! I can't wait for the cookbook so I can check out your seitan chicken recipe. And the vinaigrette sounds delicious too.

ChocolateCoveredVegan said...

so excited for your cookbook!

Sal - AlienOnToast said...

looks really good. I do the same and chuck whatever i've got in the fridge into my salads too.

jessy said...

hooray for chewy cookies! and your salad looks extra awesome! i love throwing a lot into a salad - and i can't wait to test this one out, Bianca! happy friday to you - and may you have a rock'n weekend! :)

MeloMeals said...

Yum! I can't wait for your cookbook to come out!

Re: Massaged Kale.. it's exactly what you said.. just wash, dry and cut the kale, add a tiny bit of evoo and salt and massage the hell out of it.. it 'cooks' the kale and is super delicious.

Unknown said...

Yummy!!

Tami said...

That salad looks so springy and wonderful!

Jen said...

i get really excited about salad season. i like cookies too! i just made the peanut/sesame/ginger cookies from veganomicon last night. what treats!

J said...

You know, the few days of warm spring-like weather we have had thus far have really got me to craving spring time fresh foods!

I love that you added pears to your salad, and a pear vinaigrette? That sounds amazing! For some reason, it has taken me a long time to get comfortable putting fruit in a salad, but it is really good, I'm going to have to try something like this!

Anonymous said...

Love the pears! So beautiful. I can't wait till summer's fruits and veggies for super salads!

A_and_N said...

This is perfect for my diet!

Anonymous said...

I feel exactly like you! Eating salad makes me feel all spring like.

Macie said...

Everytime you post I get a little more excited about your cookbook!!!

Anonymous said...

That salad looks amazing. I love salads with apples. I can't wait to test it! Salad with chicken seitan sounds awesome enough to satisfy even my "No Salad For Dinner" boyfriend.

Anonymous said...

warm weather foods, for the win!
I'm glad you gave the cookies another shot, woo.

Unknown said...

ah i know, i can't wait for summer time foods..big delicious salads are definitely the best, although i'm not opposed to eating them all the time though :)

aTxVegn said...

This salad sounds like a perfect dinner! I don't love pears on their own, but for some reason they taste great in salads.