Category Archives: Weeknight Dinners

Crazy for Calcium: Sesame Kale Salad

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A lady can never have too many recipes for kale.

I’m on a bit of a fitness kick at the moment. I’ve been doing Tracy Anderson’s dance based mat workout most days of the week. I love it. I’m only using two pound weights but it’s so hard I feel like I’m giving birth with my arms. Then one day a week I’m doing Yogalosphy with Mandy Ingber. A pop culture note about my regime: Tracy is Gwenyth Paltrow’s trainer and Mandy is Jennifer Aniston’s trainer and both of them have had relationships with Brad Pitt. Weird, right? Look, I’m doing hundreds of leg lifts a week, I have to think about something.

I love kale in the springtime. I love kale in the fall…

Anyway, despite the wretched word combo title, the Yogalosphy DVD is really good. Mandy has kind of a cute crackpot sense of humour and leads the video on some gorgeous dock in LA with bright blue sky overhead and birds streaking past which is a great distraction from that fact that this woman really, really hurts me. I’m not sure what it is. I don’t even feel like I’m working that hard when I do the DVD but the next day I feel like I have the flu and it hurts to step off the curb.  Something must be working.  Anyway, because moderate(ha!) exercise can help one absorb calcium I thought I’d supercharge my stores with this satisfying salad. I’m a fan of vegan calcium sources like leafy greens and sesame seeds because I feel I don’t digest dairy well. It doesn’t matter how much of a mineral or vitamin a food contains, if I’m not digesting it, I’m not absorbing it.  Plus, as you know I’ve never met a kale salad I didn’t like(e.g. here and here) and I thought it was about time for a fresh riff. Happy Monday everyone. Do something good for yourself today. xox Jasmine

Sesame Kale Salad
Serves 2

2 Tbsp Sunflower Oil
1 Tbsp raw unhulled tahini  I know this is a pain to find but the nutritional benefits of tahini made with unhealed sesame seeds make it so worth it. In Canada, you can order it here. My US friends can get in on the action here.
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1/2 teaspoon Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or wheat-free soy sauce
1/4 cup of sesame seeds or hemp seeds
4 cups kale leaves, stems and ribs removed, broken into bite-sized pieces.

Directions
In a small bowl whisk together the sunflower oil, the tahini, the lemon juice, the sesame oil and the Bragg’s or soy sauce. Pour over the kale and massage well into the leaves with clean hands. Toss in the sesame or hemp seeds. Allow to stand for 20 minutes or so so that the kale wilts a bit. Serve and enjoy.

Vegan Indian Creamed Spinach

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Isn’t this a strange little plate? I found it in a rummage store.

It’s cleanse time! Have you ever noticed that with summer comes a lot of sugar? Not that I regret a single mouthful of sour cherry and chocolate gelato or even one of the 300 juice-squirting peaches, but most years by about this time I notice that my skin and I are both a little tired and my sugar cravings have gone from mildly bratty to full-blown obnoxious. For me, that means a cleanse is in order. The timing is perfect: there’s still lots of gorgeous, locally grown produce, I’m not yet struggling with the vastly-reduced light we experience in the wintertime here on the ‘wet’ coast and the slight chill in the air makes me feel energized and alive, rather than just chilly.
This spinach recipe is great for getting started on a cleanse. It’s adapted from a website of meticulously sourced international recipes that I absolutely LOVE called whats4eats.com. The original recipe is great but I wanted mine to be vegan. The coconut milk isn’t on my cleanse(no tropical fruit, no canned foods) so I left it out this time. If you want to do the same, you may want to consider reducing the spices if you’re not used to them. I love them, so I added extra, particularly turmeric to help my joints stop creaking and popping and cayenne as it’s a powerful detoxifyer.  Served over brown rice, this dish always makes me feel luxuriously light yet satisfied and like I’m not missing a thing. Wishing you a clean and delicious week. xo Jasmine

Vegan Indian Creamed Spinach
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 lb spinach, chopped and washed
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 tbsp ginger, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tbsp virgin coconut oil
2 teaspoons coriander powder
1/3 teaspoon turmeric powder
1/4-1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper(optional)
1-1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup filtered water
1/2 cup coconut milk

Directions
Over a medium-high flame melt coconut oil. Add onions and cook, stirring frequently till onions are translucent. Reduce heat to medium. Add ginger, garlic, salt, coriander powder, turmeric powder and cayenne if you are using it. Stir continuously for 2 minutes. Add water and spinach and bring to a boil. Cover and cook until spinach is wilted, 4-5 minutes. Now If you’re smart you’ll wait until the spinach has cooled before blending it. Needless to say, I’ve never done this. I put on a big apron and my sunglasses to protect my eyes from splatters, tilt the pot to make the spinach deeper and blend it up right in the pot with my hand blender.
Like, I said, you can always cool, blend and re-heat. Either way, stir the coconut milk into the hot spinach and serve. Dee-licous!

Sugar Pumpkin and Black Bean Salad With Ginger Lime Vinaigrette

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This salad almost didn’t happen because the sugar pumpkin was just too darn cute. Will you look at that thing?

You don’t want to eat it! You want to dress it up in a knitted hat or something. I tried that. Then I ate it. It was damn good.

I think the pumpkin would give me its blessing. The salad I sacrificed it for is a delicious and healthy weeknight meal. I threw it together in twenty minutes when I came in starving after doing the Grouse Grind, a super-tough rite-of-pasage Vancouver hike. The dressing made me bay at the moon so I made another batch right away.
If you like this post, please share it with a friend or two. Have a groovy Wednesday.

xo Jasmine

Sugar Pumpkin and Black Bean Salad With Ginger Lime Vinaigrette
Makes two salads

Ingredients

Salad
Half a small sugar pumpkin or squash, seeds removed and sliced lengthwise like a melon
5 green onions, chopped rough
Four big handfuls of chopped greens  I used swiss chard and romaine from a friend’s garden
1/2 an avocado, sliced into 6 pieces
1 cup black beans

Directions
Place pumpkin in a steamer. Turn element to high, steam for about ten minutes or until soft. Remove from heat. Allow to cool slightly, it will cool quickly. Once the pumpkin is cool enough to handle, cut the flesh away from the skin and discard the skin. Add green onions  and toss.  Place two handfuls of greens, 1/2 cup of beans and three avocado slices on each plate. Divide pumpkin mixture between the plates. Divide dressing between plates. Enjoy!

Dressing
2 teaspoons finely grated ginger
2 teaspoons lime zest
juice from 2 limes
2 teaspoons Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
3 tablespoons olive oil  

Directions
Whisk all ingredients together.

Grilled Greek Salad

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Just a quick post today. After soaking up the sun at the beach I opted to grill all the components of a Greek salad except the feta. Feta’s not a cheese that browns or gets nice and gooey with heat so I didn’t  think there was an upside to grilling it.
The grilled black olives were off the charts delicious, as were the cherry tomatoes.

Hot tomatoes

The peppers were pretty good too. The grilled onions were lovely but I wound up adding some raw ones as well since I love them so much.

As for the grilled cucumbers, they reminded me of what I think when I see someone in a thong bikini. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Grilled Greek Salad
Serves 4 as a side

Ingredients

3 small peppers, cut in large chunks I used purple and white but red and/or green is always nice too
15 black olives, pits removed
6 small tomatoes
3 baby cucumbers, raw and sliced
1 medium red onion, half cut in thick slices, half cut in very thin slices3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 bunch fresh thyme, leaves removed from stems and set aside
1/4 cup-1/2 cup goat’s feta
salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
3 bamboo skewers, soaked in water at least two hours

Directions
Preheat your barbecue.
Whisk together the olive oil and the vinegar. Pull the leaves from half the bunch of thyme, add to the oil and vinegar mixture. Set aside.  Drizzle a little olive oil on the olives. Wrap them in parchment paper and then wrap again in foil. Thread the tomatoes and peppers on skewers, making sure to leave space in between each one. Place the olive packet, the  pepper skewers and the thick slices of onion on the grill. Once the onions and peppers begin to brown, turn and add the tomato skewers.  Have a bowl with a cover handy. Once a vegetable reaches desired tenderness, likely olives, peppers and tomatoes first, pull off skewers, place in the bowl, drizzle oil and vinegar mixture over top and cover tightly.

Grilled vegetables are extra delicious when they get a chance to steam with herbs in a covered bowl.

Once all of the vegetables are in the bowl, add the rest of the dressing and allow to steam in the covered bowl about five minutes more. Top with raw onions, raw cucumber, feta and remaining thyme leaves and serve.

Buddha chilling in the oregano and thyme patch

Maple Thyme Salmon

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Every summer for, oh, about the last fifteen years or so I’ve made a trek into the centre of Vancouver’s splendid Stanley Park to visit the water lilies. The surface of tiny Beaver Lake is entirely covered with lilly pads and in August they bloom: big fat waterlilies in purple, yellow, white and pink. There’s so many I barely know where to look. There’s almost enough to get bored of them, as though such a thing were possible.  Beaver Lake in August is the most luxurious thing I’ve ever seen.

There are literally hundreds of them.

On holiday Monday Bill and I rode bikes out to see this year’s batch. There was an embarrassment of lilies, maybe more than I’ve ever seen and for some reason most of them were pink with a few rare white beauties.

This I don’t mind at all. For one reason I like the pink ones best and for another reason checking on the purples, yellows and the rest of the whites will give me a great excuse to take another trip over there.

We hung out with the waterlilies for awhile, taking photos and sharing a root beer while lazily watching the dragonflies that also love to hang out around the waterlilies.

Dragonflies don’t mind messy braids.

There are plenty of frogs in Beaver Lake but none of them came out to sit on the lily pads that day. Perhaps they are tired of indulging visitors in such a hackneyed cliche.

Later, for dinner we grilled out on the tiny apartment patio. I have lots to tell you about that meal but the only thing you need to know about today is Maple Thyme salmon. So simple. So delicious. We’d bought a nice big chunk of pink salmon at the farmer’s market. Pink salmon is really great, as delicious as sockeye but half the price. One of the reasons for this is because the quality of pink does not hold up in the freezer as well as sockeye. If we’re planning to eat it right away, we buy pink.

 

All I did was line a piece of foil with a piece of parchment. I drizzled some olive oil on the salmon to keep it from drying out, then I drizzled it with a little maple syrup, oh about a tablespoon for a big filet. Then I tossed some fresh thyme sprigs and leaves on top, wrapped the whole thing up and Bill put it on the hot grill for about ten minutes.  The maple set off the sweetness of the salmon perfectly and the thyme  added just a slight haunting herbiness. Maybe the best part is that it was so effortless. A perfect dish for a season in which the most luxurious place I can imagine is just a bike ride away.

 

 

Tahini Kale

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A smashing summer lunch of Tahini Kale, a wedge of sheep’s feta and a few sun dried olives

I can’t believe I feel like eating kale again. Come springtime, I swear if I see one more sturdy dark leaf of it I’m going to just snap and rip it all out of the garden. Well, that is actually the plan for my kale plants in the spring anyways but I’m always a little surprised at the rage that bubbles forth when I actually do it.

Then, just as predictably around, oh, now, I start to feel all cravy for it, like I’m not as healthy as I could be if I just got my hands on my old friend Curly Green. Actually it works out perfectly because this is when kale starts getting really good again. Summer is perfect raw kale salad eating weather because the leaves are far less fibrous than they’ll be in the fall. While wearing a white eyelet sundress, I much prefer nibbling delicately to gnashing lustily. Nature is so wise.

The kale I made from this recipe tastes a bit similar to a salad I buy at Whole Foods but with a few more flavour notes.  I take issue with the fact that Whole Foods doesn’t remove the ribs from their kale leaves. I find the ribs difficult to negotiate when eating out of those little cardboard containers plus it’s unpalatable and heavy and since you purchase by weight there you pay for those near-inedible green tubes.  Naturally, I wrote them a weirdo letter about this. I didn’t hear back. I just know they laugh about me in their staff room. I don’t know why I’m getting so peevish about this. Maybe it’s time to move on to…oh, yes…the recipe!

This makes enough dressing for one large bunch of kale.   This same kale was also quite delicious grilled( just trim the stems but leave the ribs in, allow to marinate in dressing for at least two hours, place on hot grill, 30 seconds a side, edges will be charred)
or as chips(rip into bite size pieces and dry in low oven, 170 degrees, four hours, you can do it faster in a hotter oven but you’ll lose nutrients).

Have a smashing Wednesday. See ya next week. xx

Tahini Kale
Serves 4
1 large bunch of green, curly kale, ribs(!) and stems removed
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon raw tahini  Try to find tahini made with unhulled sesame seeds; the nutritional benefits are far greater
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil
Juice of 1 organic lemon
2 medium cloves garlic
2 tablespoons warm water
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

Directions
Place prepared kale in a large bowl. Place tahini, lemon juice, garlic, water, salt and cumin in a blender and blend until smooth. With the blender running, slowly pour the olive oil through the whole in the blender lid. Once mixture is very smooth, pour over prepared kale. Mix well with clean hands. Serve immediately or allow to marinate. Will keep 2-3 days in the refrigerator.

Skin-Loving Watercress with Lemongrass Dressing

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Whenever I think of sulphur, which hasn’t been all that often frankly, I think of well…hell.

Relentless flames of the damned aside, it turns out that sulphur has incredible health and beauty benefits such as being a super-scavanger of free radicals and a powerful promoter of skin elasticity and firmness. What could be more heavenly than that?

You’ll be relived to know that getting sulphur into your diet won’t require a pact with the Dark Lord.  Sharp-flavored veggies such as radishes, arugula, onions and horseradish are all rich in sulphur. My favourite Lucifer-free source of all though, is watercress. It’s quite fragile and doesn’t really store all that well so it’s a rare to find a really nice bunch. Whenever I do I buy two. That rhymes.

Gardeners saddled with shady plots rejoice in watercress.  Watercress can’t tolerate a lot of direct sun or heat. If your garden is south facing, plant watercress next to taller plants that will shade it and then keep it as moist as possible; in the wild watercress typically grows very near running streams and likes lots of mists and dribbles.

Scatter watercress seeds right on the surface of the soil and  then keep them very moist.

If you fall in love with watercress as much as I have, look for a seed variety called ‘cress presto’.

Cress Presto sprouts happily on an indoor windowsill, providing live food energy all winter and is lovely in salads or sprinkled on an open-face goats’ cream cheese sandwich.

Cress presto sprouts

You’ll gather from today’s recipe that I found myself some lovely fresh, peppery bunches of  watercress at the market today. Another market score was a bunch of fresh lemongrass. I used one stalk in the dressing for the watercress and the rest I’ll puree in the blender with a little water, coconut milk or oil and freeze in ice cube trays to use later in soups and curries. We’ll talk about those on another day.  Sending you a big smile on this Monday. Love, Jasmine
PS If you have friends who might like this post I would be delighted if you passed it along.


Watercress Salad With Lively Lemongrass Dressing

Lively Lemongrass Dressing
Makes about 11/2 cups of dressing, great on all kinds of salads
3/4 cup sunflower oil
1/4 cup rice vinegar
1 teaspoon Bragg’s liquid aminos or nama shoyu, or wheat-free tamari
1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, optional  Don’t go out and buy it, but use if you have it.
1 heaping tablespoon ginger, peeled and chopped
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped  Use only the tender part near the bottom, discard the dry grassy part at the top
Directions
Place all ingredients in a high-powered blender and puree until smooth. Store in a jar and give a quick shake before serving to re-emulsify.

Watercress Salad
Serves Two
Ingredients
1 bunch watercress, washed and dried
8 radishes, sliced very thinly, use a mandolin if you have one
1 minature cucumber, sliced very thinly, use a mandolin if you have one

Directions
Divide bunch of watercress between two plates. The stalks are delicious but it can be prettier if you snip most of the stalks off and use mostly leaves. Nestle the thinly sliced radishes and cucumbers among the watercress in a pleasing arrangement. Drizzle with dressing and serve immediately.

Lentil Case

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Lentil loaf is about as retro hippie as you can get. But you don’t have to be kicking it at the commune to love this tasty, portable and nutritious dish. It’s filling and comforting, great cold and the onion and ketchup topping caramelizes around the edges in a way that just sends me. When I make it on a Sunday, the many happy meals that follow remind me that I still have time to care about myself, even though it’s a busy week.

Diced carrots

I’ve been meaning to write this recipe ever since Whole Foods took over my local natural grocery a few years ago and immediately discontinued the lentil loaf: my standby apres-Kundalini yoga snack.  A kindly deli clerk with dreads to her hamstrings took pity on my sad and hungry eyes and snuck me a contraband copy of the lentil loaf ingredients list.  It was about a foot long. I didn’t have the cooking confidence then to divine a recipe from that many ingredients. It just felt too daunting. I loved my lentil loaf too much to make it and not have it come out perfect. And I loved my lentil loaf because it was easy.  I was honestly upset about it. I even found myself making up a little song about it and singing it in the car on the way home:

(plaintively)
Lentil loaf, lentil loaf
You are so delicious
I can skip meat and fishes
Lentil loaf, lentil loaf
Come back to meeee

You do stuff like that too, right? Right? Oh…

Anyway, fast forward three years or so. All of a sudden, teasing apart the proportions of a list of ingredients is really fun. By this point I’ve messed up enough to know that not ending with the results you’ve intended at least means you’ve gotten somewhere new. Now that I’ve futzed around with my recipe a little bit I realize a bunch of those ingredients were sort of superfluous, at least to me, and to really satisfy my palate now, I need a couple of sophisticated flavours like some hot smoky paprika and a few sundried tomatoes.
It took me a real long time to accept that my lentil loaf was not coming back, despite the weirdo letters that you just know I wrote to Whole Foods. And until I did I couldn’t get started on the recipe that I now like so much better.  So, my lentil loaf is back to being easy again but now it’s really mine.

What gone or obsolete thing from your past can you let go of, even if you really loved it, to make room for something new? I’d love your comments below.
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Lentil Loaf Recipe: Make Loaf not War
Yield: One large loaf, about eight pieces

Ingredients
3 cups cooked green or brown lentils A cup of dried lentils will generate this amount. Just rinse them, cover them with water, plus a couple more inches. Bring to a boil and simmer till they are soft, 15-20 mins. Easy.
1 cup cooked brown rice
1 cup cooked black beans, rinsed I used canned. Don’t judge.
1/4 cup diced celery
1/4 cup diced carrots
1/4 cup diced onions
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh herbs chopped or 1 tablespoon dried  I used oregano, thyme and parsley. Use whatever ya got.
2 tablespoons Bragg’s Liquid Aminos or light tamari soy sauce
2 tablespoons sundried tomatoes in oil, roughly chopped
1/4 cup rolled oats, either quick cooking or regular but not steel-cut
1 teaspoon La Chinata Hot Smoked Paprika
1 tablespoon sunflower oil, plus more for greasing the pan
Topping:
1/2 cup organic ketchup
1/2 cup grated white or yellow onion Use the largest hole on your grater 

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease a large or medium loaf pan well with sunflower oil. In a medium saucepan heat sunflower oil over a medium flame. Add onions, carrots and celery. Cook until softened, 7-10 minutes.  Remove from heat and toss in the herbs, stir into the hot vegetables to release their oils. Set aside.  

Mix grated onion into the ketchup.  Set aside.

In a food processor, place brown rice, black beans and two cups of the lentils.  Turn on. Add Bragg’s Liquid Aminos, paprika and sautéed vegetable and herb mixture. Blend until smooth. Turn off food processor.

With a spoon, stir in reserved lentils, sun dried tomatoes and oatmeal. Pour into loaf pan. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes. Pull loaf pan out of oven. With a spoon, smooth ketchup and grated onion mixture evenly over the top. Raise oven temperature to 400 and bake for 30 minutes more or until topping is darkened and caramelized around the edges. Cool for 15 mins before eating. Delicious hot, even better cold. Serve with a crisp green salad. 


One-Pan Chicken Thighs with Crispy Sage Leaves and Wildflower Honey

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Garnished with sage blossom

This recipe is loosely based on one I clipped out of Chatalaine(a Canadian women’s magazine) about four years ago and have made dozens of times since.  You can find the original here.

As for my version, it’s inspired by the veritable shrubbery of sage leaves and flowers my garden has gifted me with this spring and a bit of bulk wildflower honey I bought at one of my favourite markets anywhere, The Community Food Co-Op in Bellingham, Washington. The thigh is my favourite part of the chicken because that little bit of extra fat adds big flavour payoff and as a bonus, thighs are cheaper than breasts.

This is a quick, easy one-pan dish that, along with a salad and a few fingerling potatoes makes for an elegant but substantial weeknight meal. The addition of crispy sage leaves and a slightly sweet sauce makes it special enough for entertaining.  And it’s delicious cold. Be sure to clip a few edible flowers for the plate especially if you’re ‘only’ making it for yourself. These sage buds are de-gorgeous in such a down to earth way, like a woman wearing no makeup but flushed from working outdoors. She’s making no effort to be ornamental but she is so beautiful despite this or maybe because of it.

Serve with a medium-to-light bodied red. I was quite happy with my merlot-tempranillo blend. Now, go show that Monday who’s boss. xo

PS If you find this post useful I would be so delighted if you shared it.

One-Pan Chicken Thighs With Crispy Sage Leaves and Wildflower Honey Sauce
Serves 2-3 but makes a lot of sauce so if you’re serving four people just throw in a couple of extra thighs.
Ingredients
4-6 chicken thighs
16 sage leaves, leave 8 whole and chop the other 8
1 tsp butter, preferably goat butter
1 cup chicken broth  If not using homemade or low-sodium add much less salt later
2 tablespoons wildflower honey, or other floral honey such as clover, raspberry or blackberry
Salt and fresh ground pepper 

Directions
In a frypan large enough to hold all the chicken thighs, melt goat’s butter. Add whole sage leaves and turn often until they are crispy. Remove from pan and set aside. Add chicken thighs to the pan and brown well on both sides, about ten minutes.  Sprinkle a pinch of salt on top of each thigh, remembering to add less if your stock is not homemade or low sodium. Grind copious amounts of black pepper onto the chicken. I ground for about 15 or 20 seconds. Chicken and sauce should be quite freckled. Pour in chicken stock and scrape up the brown bits that will have formed on the bottom of the pan. Cover and cook until chicken is quite firm and reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees. if you don’t have a thermometer, chicken is done when it is quite springy and no longer pink inside. Should take 10- 15 minutes to be done.
Remove chicken from pan and set aside on a plate, covered. Add wildflower honey and chopped, uncooked sage leaves to the remaining liquid. Stir and reduce volume of liquid by half, or more if you have fewer thighs. Pour over reserved chicken thighs, garnish with reserved crispy sage leaves, an edible flower or two and serve.

Easy Sundried Tomato Salad Dressing

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Salad with onions, avocado and salmonberries

This recipe was one of those accidental wins that happened when I was feeling so tired, and so lazy and was ready to get dinner on the table in ten minutes but realized I didn’t have any damn salad dressing. But I did have a big jar of sundried tomatoes that I bought at Costco. As an aside, my boyfriend Bill has become addicted to them. Yep, farm boy, roadie, outdoorsman Bill has been scarfing down sundried tomato and goat cheese omelettes that he makes himself every day after I leave for work. By the time you read this I will be in deep trouble for having revealed that. If I don’t post by Monday afternoon please come and check my apartment in Vancouver. I’m probably zipstrapped to my bed frame being fed Burger King fries as punishment.

This tractor-fixing man loves sundried tomatoes.

Anyway, I threw the sundrieds into the blender with some other vinaigrette makings and some herbs from my patio, dumped it rather crabbily on a salad and it… was… DELICIOUS( fyi, when I make the rare switch from italics to all caps I’m SERIOUS). It has a hearty almost pasta sauce-like quality, pleasant sweetness with some good tangy structure from the balsamic vinegar. The flavour just goes on and on and gets better with every day it sits in the fridge. Not that it did, mind you. We scarfed down what should have lasted a week in three days otherwise I would have tried it on some gluten-free angel hair. Bill always says I’m going to pull something patting myself on the back for my own cooking but seriously, try this one, you’ll love me forever.

PS If you like this post and want me to keep em’ coming, please share on the buttons below. xo

Easy Sundried Tomato Salad Dressing
Makes about 2 cups, keeps in the fridge at least a week, probably two if it lasts that long

Ingredients
3/4 cup sundried tomatoes packed in oil, drained  If you only have dried soak them in warm water at least an hour ahead. They do tend to be more expensive though so you may want to wait till you’ve made a Costco run and bought a big jar.
1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, preferably strawberry
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons fresh oregano leaves Substitute any herb you have on hand and like a lot.
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves  Substitute for any herb you have on hand and like a lot.

Directions
Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until almost smooth. I didn’t blend it down all way because the sundrieds have such wonderful texture. Use it to dress any salad. Mine had lots of onions, avocado and some foraged salmonberries, a tart-sweet berry that grows wild on the Northwest coast.