Pile It High

There is something magical about the combination of ranch dressing and barbecue sauce.  Especially on a salad.  Also with croutons and coconut bacon.  

It's a lot easier to make salads for dinner when you keep crazy good salad toppings like these around.  I've eaten mixing bowl salads three times in the past week.  This one has locally grown baby spinach, chopped romaine, shredded yellow carrots, croutons, coconut bacon, locally made smoked blue cheese, baked tofu soaked in my bestie's homemade whiskey barbecue sauce, and ranch dressing. This is a filling salad.  Be sure you pile the spinach and lettuce high to balance all the rich toppings.

My buddy Jesse says I only like barbecue and ranch together because I'm from Texas, but I think everyone should try it.  I enjoyed this salad while watching an episode of King of the Hill.  Hank Hill thinks you should go prep some salad toppings now so that you're prepared.

His words of wisdom on tonight's episode: "Plan ahead.  Then when stuff happens, you'll be prepared."

My newfound love for "Ricotta" and longtime love for Ranch

I never cared much for ricotta in my dairy-eating days, but after trying the Cashew Ricotta from Veganomicon: I'm in love. I never thought that adding a little 1/2 cup of cashews to my usual ricotta recipe of food processed tofu, lemon juice, garlic, and basil would transform it into something this amazing. I did vary from the recipe slightly, because I ran out of cashews and had to sub almonds and since the fresh basil has all been made into pesto I used a few frozen cubes of that. I stuffed this "ricotta" into shells and covered it with premade tomato sauce (I admit this shamefully because I have garden tomatoes that need to be used).



On the side we had a raw kale salad with Ranch dressing. I was so excited to see all the baby kale still growing outside. It's been frosty every morning and we've already harvested the bulk of our kale. But at the top of each plant is a few beautiful curly leaves...I gathered them up and added another great find: green garlic!

I know- green garlic is usually just for spring, right?
Somehow we have little garlic babies sprouting up in the garden in November in Minnesota. It's true that I transplanted some green garlic from the community garden to the backyard garden in April. But no matter how careful I am, I can't get it to survive the trauma of being moved and produce a bulb. I guess it survived underground and decided to sprout up again right now. And I am happy to eat it!

I am so impressed that the boys will eat a raw kale salad. It's true that it needs to have a fair amount of ranch dressing on it, but still- I think it's pretty impressive. Most adults wouldn't even try a salad so hearty and deeply green.

I'd eat pretty much anything if it's doused in ranch dressing, though. I don't think I've ever really written the recipe down, but here's an approximation:

1/4 cup veganaise
3/4 cup unsweetened plain soy yogurt (My intestinal flora love Wildwood the best)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1Tbsp dried or fresh parsley
1 tsp dillweed
1.5 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

Then just put it in a jar and shake it like a polaroid picture. You can add a little soymilk if it is too thick, but I like it thick for dipping things in.