Salad Daze

Right now, I love salad. To people who think vegans eat nothing but piles of raw vegetables all day, that might seem like a silly thing to say; if you don't like salad, being vegan would totally suck. But, as we all know, there are loads of vegan options that don't resemble salads in the slightest. And during the winter, that's what I thrive on. It's months of soups, curries, stews and other hearty (and hot!) foods. But spring may have finally sprung in NYC, so I'm all about the salad. Here are a few awesome ones from Isa Chandra Moskowitz's upcoming Appetite for Reduction (do you love that title half as much as I do? It makes me so happy it's almost stupid).

First up, we have Orange Sesame Quinoa Salad With Roasted Beets. This is probably the most work I've ever put into a salad. You have to roast the beets and peel the oranges and make the quinoa and the dressing, etc. But it's totally worth it. And coming from me, that's kind of saying something since I'm famous* for hating grain salads. I don't like sweet salads, either (I love vegetable salads and I love fruit salads, but never the twains shall meet).So the fact that I really liked a salad with quinoa, oranges and currants in it is...magic.

Next up, a nice, springy salad with Isa's Sanctuary Dressing. It's kind of like "ranch" dressing, but without all the depressing connotations ranches have. Win from all sides. It's really thick and also makes an excellent dip.

Lastly, we have Caesar salad with eggplant bacon. Have you tried the Caesar recipe in Veganomicon? It's ridiculously good, isn't it? This is reminiscent of that, without just being a low fat version of the exact same recipe. They taste different enough for me to be happy I have two different recipes in my repertoire, and my waistline likes the idea of substituting crispy, smokey eggplant for croutons. Sometimes.

* Among my family, anyway.