kale | Cadry's Kitchen

As I mentioned in my last post, my husband is a finalist in the Salad’tude contest being held right now at Happy Healthy Life for a Napa Valley Culinary Adventure. The fit really couldn’t be better, because while many people think of pizzas and burgers as the male domain, David is a salad lover through and through. (Although he’s also happy for a veggie burger & sweet potato fries or a cheeseless tomato & pineapple pizza any day of the week.)

Several times a week we opt for salad for lunch or dinner. It’s an easy go-to option, because we can use whatever we have on hand – kale, spinach, or green leaf lettuce, any kind of beans, seitan, baked tofu, roasted or raw vegetables of any variety, fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, seeds… And then there’s the dressing! Even if we had salad every night of the week, it could be different every time.

I like to start the week by making one huge salad that can be pulled from for lunches, dinners, as a side, or as a filling for wraps or burritos. A plus for having a huge salad around all the time is that it makes healthy eating convenient. Let’s face it, people like convenience. (I think that’s why so many people eat fast food. Sure, some people like the taste, but even more than that, I think they like that it’s easy.) If we make salad what’s easy, then that’s what we’ll eat. When we’re too tired, too hungry, too hurried, or too lazy to cook, and a salad is what is ready and waiting, that’s what we’ll have. (If it’s already in its own separated containers, even easier!) I love setting myself up for healthy eating by just having a salad on hand for when things are rushed.

The salad David used for his Salad’tude entry involves many classics from our kitchen. The base is massaged kale. (Just remove washed kale from its center rib, cut into bite-sized pieces, and massage until softened. For more details, check out this video & post.) Then it’s topped with carrots, celery, red bell pepper, and cucumbers. It’s then tossed in creamy cashew dressing.

The two things that make this salad so completely craveable are the additions of roasted chickpeas & easy lemon baked tofu that’s been roasted in squares. Outside of salads, the chickpeas are great with asparagus or broccoli on polenta or even by themselves as an alternative to popcorn for snacking. The tofu is fabulous in slices on sandwiches, in a tofu Benedict, or cubed in pasta salad, stir-fries, or wraps.

Ready to get inspired? Check out all of the luscious looking salads on Happy, Healthy Life. If you haven’t already voted, it would mean so much if you’d consider voting for David, #6! Thanks a bunch!

Easy Lemon Baked Tofu, roasted in squares

Easily enough for four salads

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbsp reduced-sodium tamari
1 10 oz. block Wildwood extra-firm tofu in an aseptic package or 1 14 oz. package of extra firm water-packed tofu, pressed
¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Sliced the tofu into 4 slices width-wise. With all of the slices on top of each other, cut into it like a checkerboard or Rubik’s cube, making a bunch of rectangular squares.

Combine extra virgin olive oil and tamari in an 8×8 glass baking dish or pie plate. Toss the squares in the tamari mixture and bake for twenty minutes. Remove from oven and flip the tofu squares. Add lemon juice to the baking dish. Bake for an additional 15-20 minutes. (Check at 15 minutes to see if all of the lemon juice has been absorbed and the tofu is fully brown. If so, it’s done. If not, put it back in for five more minutes.) Remove from oven and serve.

Roasted Chickpeas

Makes 1 cup

½ tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 cup cooked chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Toss chickpeas, nutritional yeast, and ½ tsp extra virgin olive oil on baking sheet. Put baking sheet in the oven and roast chickpeas for 20 minutes, stopping once to shake the pans so that they roast evenly.

In celebration of Vegan MoFo, I’m doing a month of themed dinner party ideas! The theme of the first week is… The Wizard of Oz!

The Wicked Witch of the West was having a bad day. Not terribly surprising considering this is a woman whose own parents named her Wicked Witch. Who does that? And then they gave her sister the same name – Wicked Witch. The only way they could tell the two apart was by adding in the location of the girls’ bedrooms. (Can you imagine being one of the girls’ friends and calling them on the telephone? What a hassle. “Hello, can I speak with the Wicked Witch?” “Which one?” “Um, of the West.” I don’t know. Maybe they weren’t exactly suffering with phone calls.)

The point is, the Wicked Witch was having what she referred to as – a day. First off, the weather was crappy – windy, gale-like, huge gusts. If you think the traffic is bad on the 405 during a rainstorm, you really don’t want to know what it’s like in an actual tornado. There was an old woman knitting, some guys rowing a boat… It was chaos.

Once she was finally out of it, she got the message from one of the Winged Monkeys that her sister had been involved in a house vs. witch accident. These things happen, of course, but you never imagine that it’s going to be your sister. As if things could get worse, the accident happened in Munchkinland. I don’t have to tell you – those people are irritating with their little songs, and the giggling, and the sleeping in flowers. I know the word “twee” gets bandied about a lot these days, but those people live it.

So she gets to Munchkinland, amongst much singing and dancing and hullaballoo about their road. (It’s just a walkway, people. It’s not exactly the Autobahn.) Lo and behold, there is her sister in a very macabre scene with her feet dangling out from beneath a house. As per usual, Miss Goody (Givin’ Away Your) Two Shoes was there with some girl whose ensemble must have been ripped from Picnic Blanket Ensembles, Incorporated. Quicker than you can say inheritance, the Shoe Stealer of the Midwest is heading down the much ballyhooed road wearing the Wicked Witch of the East’s garish footwear.

The witch used all of the means she could to get back what was rightfully hers. She even went the route so many men use for proposals and wrote her message in the sky. (Did you know she was the original sky-writer? True story.) But Oz must have had an old grudge against the witch, or perhaps he admired her ingenuity and thought there would be no way Dorothy and her band of newfound friends could kill her. All we know is that in the process of trying to gainfully retrieve what was hers, it got mangled and the local jurisdiction encouraged the girl to steal the only other valuable thing the witch owned – her broomstick. (I know how she feels. Someone stole my mop once. I was pretty heartbroken.)

The Wicked Witch was hoping when she brought in the enormous hourglass to the Kansas native’s guestroom that she might see reason. Instead? Well, to be fair, I don’t know why a woman who can be killed by water would leave a bucket of the stuff just laying around her house. (Especially considering she wasn’t exactly well liked by her staff.) But that’s not even the point. The point is the Wicked Old Witch was liquidated that day – from pest to puddle. And the rest is history.

Wicked Witch of the West Smoothie

Serves 2

1 leaf curly kale, rib removed
1 Tbsp flax seed, ground
1 cup vanilla soy milk (any non-dairy milk will also work)
1 banana, peeled and frozen in chunks
3/4 cup mango, frozen in chunks

Blend curly kale, ground flax seed, and vanilla soy milk in a blender until the kale is completely broken down. Add frozen banana & mango chunks and blend until smooth.

A big thank you to the incredibly talented Allison Craig for designing the updated party version of the Cadry’s Kitchen banner (which she also created)!