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Sauces/Dressings

Miso Sweet Potato Glory Bowl of Goodness | (highly addictive dressing)

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There’s something SO satisfying about eating a meal out of a bowl.

Plus, making this will turn you into a left-over magician.

Anytime I make a Glory Bowl/Buddha Bowl, I make a lot of everything. This makes it difficult not to eat healthy for the rest of the week.

So, go crazy with the cooking amounts then enjoy easy left-overs ready to stuff into a wrap to-go, add to salads, or make into another sweet bowl of goodness.

This dressing. OMG.

It never fails to impress. I’ve nailed down the right amounts of these amazing ingredients, and created one of the best sauces for any kind of bowl.

Other ideas for it? Only add a tablespoon of water to make it into a dip OR add 3/4 cup of water and make it into a salad dressing. Seriously. SO GOOD.

This is a perfect option for a vegan dinner party. Lay out all of the ingredients and get everyone to make art in their bowls. Bonus? The non-vegans will feel completely satisfied, and realize that vegans do eat more than just lettuce and carrots 😉

Benefits:

~ Whole grains are packed with soluble fibre, minerals, vitamins and antioxidants. Because they’re packed with the goods, they reduce the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer. They’re a great option to fill up on to keep your weight in check. It’s best when you soak them before cooking to reduce the phytic acid, and begin the sprouting process. This makes it much easier for your body to digest and assimilate the nutrients in the grain.

~ Miso is a fermented form of soy, rice or barley. This is GREAT because the more feremented foods we consume, the better. Feremented foods are highly beneficial for your gut, and the good bacteria in your intestinal flora. Surprisingly, 9 out of 10 of our human cells are bacteria, and only 1 out of 10 is human! So, it’s extremely imporant to keep you bacterial intestinal flora happy. Fermented foods do just that. What happens if they’re deprived, this can lead to gas, constipation, hormonal issues, PMS, chronic respiratory problems, high cholesterol, neurological problems, osteoporosis, low energy, weight gain… the list goes on.

~ Sweet potatoes of all varieties are high in vitamin C, A and manganese, plus were the staple of the longest living peoples in history, the Okinawans. They’re anti-aging because of their high antioxidant properties, and nutrient density!

Miso Sweet Potato Glory Bowl of Goodness

Serves: 6-8

Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Bowl:

  • 2 cups of your favourite grain (brown rice, wild rice, quinoa, wheat berries or…)
  • 2 cups red or green lentils, rinsed
  • 3 sweet potatoes (get different colours if you can find them!), sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
  • 1 tsp each of salt and pepper
  • 4 cups (or more) arugula or spinach
  • raw veggies of choice, grated or spiralized (I use carrots, beets, zucchini, or red cabbage)
  • 1 cup green peas, cooked from frozen according to package (optional)
  • avocado slices (optional)

Miso Tahini Dressing:

  • 1/4 cup tahini
  • 1/4 cup miso paste
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tsp tamari
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/2 cup of water (or more depending on the consistency you like)

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 415 degrees F
  2. Cook the grain according to package. Or check out the grain cooking chart below!
  3. Roast sweet potatoes: lay out rounds on parchment covered baking pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 30 minutes, flipping once half-way
  4. Cook the lentils: For RED lentils ~ bring lentils plus 3 cups of water to a boil in your pot. Stir, then let simmer with lid slightly ajar for 10 minutes (check at 8 minutes to be sure they don’t over cook). For GREEN lentils ~ bring lentils plus 4 cups of water to a boil, then stir, then simmer 20 minutes.
  5. Grate or spiralize your raw veggies of choice
  6. Blend the Miso Tahini Dressing: Add all dressing ingredients to blender or food processor. Blend until smooth
  7. Make art in your bowl! Pack it with the rice, lentils, raw veggies, sweet potatoes and arugula, then drizzle the dressing all over!

 

Crunchy Quinoa, Sweet Potato Salad with Lemon Maple Tahini Dressing

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It’s always good to have a batch of quinoa salad kickin’ around. It’s especially good to have one packed with raw veggies and sweet potatoes, drizzled with a glorious dressing.

Impress your friends and the next potluck, or just impress yourself on your next camping trip.
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This passed weekend was filled with quinoa salad and the Best Soba Noodle Salad as we Stand Up Paddled the Thompson River on our Kahuna Paddle Boards for 3 days, finding beautiful camping spots along with way. These salads pack away in the cooler easily in a big zip lock bag (so gourmet, I know).

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These salads plus a couple heads of crispy romaine…What more do you need for dinner on the river?

I don’t know about you, but I thoroughly enjoy wrapping everything in romaine leaves. Lettuce wraps all the way.

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Benefits:

Quinoa, AKA the ‘Mother Grain’ contains all essential amino acids (what does essential mean? Well, in this case it means that the only way you can get these amino acids- the building blocks of protein- is to eat them. This is because your body can’t produce them on it’s own. These building blocks are great for  hair and nail growth and tissue healing).

Sweet potatoes are the staple of the ‘centenarians’ (people who live passed the age of 100) of Okinawa. Include lots of these in your diet to get beneficial, complex carbohydrates, plus a magnitude of vitamins and minerals. Another benefit? So delicious.

Celery not only adds a nice crunch to this salad, but it also brings a natural salty taste. Any time you want to avoid the salt in recipes (to minimize water retention and puffiness), just throw in some celery. It’s also packed with fibre, water content, antioxidants, potassium, folate, and vitamins C, K, and B6. Your liver will thank you, and so will your skin.
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Makes 6 servings

Prep time: 1 hour (unless you pre-make your sweet potatoes!)

Ingredients:

For Salad:

  • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 large sweet potatoes, diced into bite sized squares
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 stalks of celery, minced
  • 2 red bell peppers, chopped
  • 1 cup black beans (either use a can, or pre-make your own by soaking 2-3 hours or overnight in water, rinsing, then bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours)
  • 1/2 red onion, diced
  • Sprouts (your choice – I used mung bean sprouts)
  • 1/2 cup parsley, roughly chopped

For Dressing:

  • 1 tbsp tahini
  • 2 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/2 tsp cumin
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon

Directions:

  1. Roast sweet potatoes: pre-heat oven to 400 F. Toss the diced sweet potatoes with garlic powder. Lay out on parchment paper covered roasting pan (or use a non-stick re-usable cooking sheet on your pan). Roast for 45 minutes.
  2. Cook the quinoa: throw the quinoa and water into a pot, bring to a boil, give it a stir, then simmer it for 15 minutes. Fluff with your fork.
  3. Make dressing: blend all ingredients together in a blender or mini food processor. OR use your hand power – just whisk tahini and lemon together, then mix in the rest of the ingredients.
  4. Mix all salad ingredients with dressing together in your favourite bowl! Garnish with extra sprouts and parsley.

5 Oil-Free Vegan Salad Dressings

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Dressing is one of those things that can make or break your relationship with your salad.

But, when they’re oil-free, guilt-free, delicious, and actually add to the healthy-ness of your salad, then I’d say you’re winning.

Not only is oil a refined food, but it’s also 100% fat, and a huge amount of calories with little nutrients per calorie. We want to get as close to natural, whole foods as possible. So having a dressing that is oil-free will allow you to douse your salads with even more nutrition, rather than taking away from the nutrition of the goods in your bowl (think McDonald’s caesar salad smothered in thousands of empty calories of creaminess… no buenos).

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Let’s face it. It’s best if we all make friends with salad.

Salad is packed with raw vegetables, fruits, seeds, you  name it, all in their natural, nutrient-dense state. The greens are essential for you and your glowing skin. The digestive enzymes coming from the raw foods in the never-big-enough salad bowl are what will you live that long healthy life. Not to mention the antioxidants boosting your immunity high up on the pedestal.

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Salads can either be the most boring part of the meal, oooooorrr they can be the most talked about delicious and most awesome part of the meal. This all depends on the fixin’s and the DRESSING.

If you’re in a conundrum and you cannot, for the life of you, come up with an idea for dinner, all you need to do is dive into your fridge, chop things up, throw them in a bowl, add some seeds (maybe some beans too, if you’re feelin’ it), and pour over one of these yummy dressings (which will be ready and waiting for you in a mason jar in your fridge, am I right?). I get my crispy heads of romaine from www.spud.ca directly to my door step. So local. So easy.img_1771

(Use my code CRVAN-MURJUB for 20$ off your first order if you please!)

Make that salad BIG and call it dinner.

DO make friends with sa-lad, do make friends with SA-lad. (Sing it). You get my drift.

5-salad-dressings

These are some of my go-to, oil-free dressings for the massive, mega-salads I love to create.

Each of these can be made ahead, then store in the fridge for salads to come. Each makes enough for about 3 salads!

 

Maple Balsamic Vinaigrette

This tastes like dessert. A decadent, fancy salad with orange, red onion, arugula, spinach and pine nuts will do the trick.

  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • 1 tbsp dijon mustard
  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinaigrette
  • 3 tbsp water

Combine in mason jar. Shake it up!

French Lemony Dijon

A go-to easy dressing for your quick weeknight salad. Think chopped avocado, tomatoes, green onion, romaine, red leaf lettuce and pear.

  • Juice of 1 large lemon
  • 1 tbsp dijon mustard
  • 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 1/2 to 1 tsp coconut nectar (or maple syrup)

Combine in mason jar. Shake it up!

Tomango Basil Tango 

Fresh, sweet and fruity. Good for a summer salad. Think endives, peaches, green onion, spinach.

  • 1 mango
  • 1 tomato
  • 3 sprigs fresh basil
  • 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

Blend all together until smooth.

Cheezy Dill Tahini Glory Bowl Dressing

Can be used for a Caesar-like salad, or even for a rice, bean, sweet potato glory bowl.

  • 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 2 sprigs of fresh dill(or 1 tsp dry)
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 1/4 cup tahini
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp maple syrup
  • Juice of 1/2 lemon

Blend all together until smooth

Alternatively: Combine water and tahini in jar, make a paste by mashing or wisking. Add rest of ingredients, lid on. Shake it up!

Nutty Ginger Miso Vinaigrette

This is pad-thai-ish. Yummy with some red cabbage, grated carrots, mixed greens, green onion and tomatoe.

  • 1.5 tsp organic soy sauce
  • t tbsp miso
  • t tbsp rice vinegar
  • t tbsp coconut sugar
  • 1/4 cup warm water
  • 1 tbsp almond butter

Blend all ingredients in small food processor, or magic bullet.

Alternatively: Combine water, miso, and almond butter to make a paste with a wisk or fork. Then add the rest of the ingredients in a mason jar. Shake it up!

Pasta Salad with Creamy Green Sauce (Oil-Free|Vegan)

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Picnics, potlucks, and parties. That’s what this pasta salad is perfect for. Take this dish anywhere and have you will have an uber-satisfying dinner that scores high on the health-o-meter.

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