Early Spring Salad with Orange Dressing

We’re still seeing late season citrus in our local grocery store and we love to add that late citrus to spring veggies that are in season here in the Pacific Northwest. Delicious asparagus, spring peas, and purple radishes with freshly picked greens. We didn’t include amounts of asparagus feel free to use as much or as little as you have or as you want to eat. We use the crispy fava beans as protein in this salad, however if you don’t have them boiled eggs or fried tofu would both be good substitutes.

Time: 40 minutes

Ingredients

For the Salad:

Leafy Greens - early spring options include arugula, mustard greens, baby chard, spinach, radicchio, and pea greens

Asparagus

Radishes

Snow peas

Crispy Spring Onions

Good Bean Sea Salt Crispy Favas and Peas

For the Dressing:

1/2 cup orange Juice

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup water

1/2 tsp mustard

salt and pepper to taste

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Move an oven rack to the top shelf in your oven, and turn the oven to the broil setting. Rinse and cut the ends off of your asparagus. Toss in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Layer the asparagus in a single layer on a cookie sheet and broil for 5 minutes. Flip the asparagus and broil for 5 minutes on the other side. The asparagus is easy to burn on the broil setting, so we recommend using a timer and watching them closely. Remove from oven and make the crispy spring onions.

Chop the remaining vegetables and cut or tear the salad greens (if you want to). Put all of the salad dressing ingredients into a jar with a lid and shake until it’s emulsified/fully combined. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add all the salad ingredients to a bowl (except the spring onions). Toss with salad dressing. Top with spring onions and enjoy!

Crispy Spring Onions

We like to fry spring onions (or scallions or green onions) in olive oil until they are crispy and use them as a garnish for many meals. When you do this, you will end up with olive oil left over. This olive oil will have a delicious onion flavor and is good in so many things! We recommend saving this and using it as a replacement for olive oil in a salad dressing, as oil for roasting veggies and potatoes, or dip bread in it for a snack.

Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

1 bunch of spring onions (or scallions or green onions)

olive oil (varies based on pan size)

salt

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Rinse and thinly slice lengthwise the green parts of your spring onion. If there are white bulbs you can save these for another meal.

For this recipe you will need to pour olive oil in a pan until you have a full 3/4 inch of oil in the pan. We recommend using a very small pan so that you don’t have to use as much olive oil. Put your pan at med-low heat and let the olive oil get hot before adding onions. Cook them until they start to brown, turning and stirring constantly to keep them from clumping up. Use a fork to remove them from the oil and cool them on a kitchen towel or paper towel and salt generously. Eat them as a snack, top a salad with them, or use as a garnish in many meals.

At this point you’ll want to keep your olive oil. If you aren’t going to use it immediately, once it cools it would be safer to store it in the fridge until you are ready to use it. Enjoy!

Swiss chard, mushroom, & tofu bowl with toasted cashews

This dish was inspired by the food that Camille had in her fridge. At the time, she had 4 mushrooms, so that is what she used. If you have more, it’s really good with about 2 cups of sliced mushrooms and I’m sure it would be good with anywhere in between. We’ve enjoyed it with both cremini and oyster mushrooms and would bet it would also taste good with shiitake mushrooms and chestnut mushrooms.

Also, we realize that yesterday was Indigenous People’s Day. If you’re interested in why we feel so called ‘Columbus Day’ should be changed federally to Indigenous People’s Day check out this beautiful episode from the All My Relations Podcast.

Serves: 4

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

For the greens:

1 bunch Swiss chard, de-stemmed and thinly sliced

some mushrooms (see intro)

salt

1/4 tsp pepper

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp coconut aminos

1 tsp pomegranate molasses (optional)

For the tofu:

1 block tofu

1/4 cup sesame oil

1 tsp salt

1/4 cup nutritional yeast

For the rice:

1 cup sushi rice

2 cups slightly salted water

1 tsp rice or champagne vinegar

1/2 tsp sugar

For the garnish:

1/4 cup cashews, toasted

1/2 bunch thinly sliced green onion

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Slice the mushrooms and sautee until golden brown with salt and pepper. Taste to make sure these are seasoned to your preference. While they are cooking, de-stem the chard and slice into small ribbons. When the mushrooms are fully cooked, add the swiss chard, pomegranate molasses, a bit of salt, and coconut aminos. Cook 1 minute until the chard is shiny and soft but not yet browning.

Cook the sushi rice in salted water until done. You want to add some salt, but since you won’t be draining the rice it shouldn’t be as salty as sea water. We used about 1/2 tsp salt, but this will depend on the type of salt you are using. Once it is cooked, add all the other ingredients to the rice and fluff with a fork.

Slice the tofu into 1 inch squares. Heat the sesame oil in a pan, once hot add the tofu. Cook undisturbed on one side until golden brown. Salt and flip. Cook until crispy on the second side and then pour all the nutritional yeast in the pan and stir to coat.

Toast the cashews if they are raw and slice the green onions.

To serve, assemble rice on the bottom, then tofu, then greens. Top with toasted cashews and green onion and enjoy!