Sunday, May 24, 2009

Asian-Inspired Salad

Continuing on my salad ideas, today's salad was Asian-inspired. I am still looking for ideas for salads! I made this salad as dinner yesterday and was very proud of myself for eating so healthily. Except that we went out with friends for drink and I ate more there and had a couple of calorie-busting/boosting cocktails. My new favorite - flavored vodka (citrus, raspberry etc) with tonic. It is a nice summer drink!
I just sauteed the tofu. For more flavor, marinating the Tofu in a mixture of soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, red pepper flakes and some agave nectar before browning or grilling is a great option. Also, this mixture could substitute for salad dressing too. I also added 'honey sesame sticks' (from Trader Joe's) as a crunch. I really like it's taste, but may go easy on it the next time because of the calorie content. V prefers the regular sesame sticks without honey. I like a lot of variety in flavors and textures in all my foods! The vegetables I added were related to what I had at home. The salad was too 'green'. I would have used yellow or red peppers or carrots, but I am trying to cook with what we get from the CSA and reducing the number of vegetables that I buy. For this salad, I used a pre-made dressing from Trader Joe's - sesame soy ginger. I really like the dressing, but the list of ingredients in this paragraph would make a great substitution!


Asian-Inspired Salad

Ingredients

3 Cups Mixed Salad Greens (CSA)
2 Stalks Celery
1 Green Onion (CSA)
1/2 Green Pepper
1 Stalk Lemon Grass (CSA)
16 oz Extra Firm Tofu
Handful of Honey Sesame Sticks
3 T Sesame Soy Ginger Dressing
1 T Oil (preferably Sesame)





Prepare Tofu by pressing the block of tofu between two plates and placing a heavy can on it to sqeeze out the water.

Cut into cubes and sautee over Sesame Oil till light brown.
Mix together all other ingredients, add dressing. Place tofu pieces on top and you're dinner is ready!




2 comments:

  1. Your salads look great! My first CSA pick up is in June so I, too, will have tons of greens. I have had NO interest in salads at all for the past month or so so I am unsure how the heck we will get through all of them! The things I crave right now are really not very healthy. I mad a great salad a while back with Strawberries. I will look it up.

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  2. Hopefully you have help with eating the greens. How are you feeling these days?? Salad with strawberries sounds good. I am also trying to find ways to make interesting dressings with simple ingredients that I have at home, especially vinagarette(SP?) type dressings.

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