Sanctuary Chef Salad, page 28I have been simultaneously looking forward to and avoiding making this salad. It sounded so good, but the prospect of preparing all the individual components seemed like a lot of hassle. I wondered, would it be worth it?
I'm happy to report: it is SO worth it. By the time we sat down to dinner, I was kind of tired and irritable about all the dirty dishes, and skeptical about the pay out for all the hassle. But with the very first bite, my taste buds said, "Oh, yeah!" and each bite after that got even better.
So let me break it down for you here. First, I whipped up the Sanctuary Dressing (you know, because "ranches are not nice places for cows"):
Sanctuary Dressing, page 29Very tasty. The kids liked it, too, even though they never really liked regular ranch dressing. El Hombre asked, "How did you do that?" I only had soft silken tofu on hand in the pantry, so I used that instead of the extra-firm. It was fine.
Then we have the Eggplant Bacon:
Eggplant Bacon, page 42You can see that a few pieces got a little burnt, but it was all good. Man, I love that stuff.
Here we have the Basic Baked Tofu...
Basic Baked Tofu, page 144... which is perfect for a salad like this. Then there is the Herb-Roasted Cauliflower:
Herb-Roasted Cauliflower, page 108The cauliflower was really, really tasty. SweetPotato especially enjoyed it. I did notice an error in the recipe, however... the instructions said to "drizzle in the oil" and mix it into the breadcrumb and herb mixture, but there is no oil listed in the ingredients. I went ahead and made it without any oil, which is what I would have done anyway, and it turned out great.
And finally, all the other salad veggies:
Chopped Romaine, tomatoes, red onions, carrots, radishes, and bean sproutsI couldn't find sunflower sprouts at my grocery store, and alfalfa sprouts didn't strike my fancy this week, so I went with bean sprouts. They were nice and crunchy.
Delicious. And filling. And definitely worth the hassle. Bless El Hombre... he did all the dishes.
12 comments:
The best guys are the ones who do dishes. This looks great, I'm glad it was worth it! I think I actually like burnt pieces of food sometimes the best.
This seems like a really fun recipe to make when having guest over. Then I would lay out all of the ingredients buffet style and let the guests build salads. Thanks for putting the work in so that we can all be sure it's worth it!
foodfeud - you are so right! I'm a lucky lady. He washes all the dishes most nights, and always does a much better job of cleaning the kitchen than I can do.
Wendy - what a great idea! I think you should do it and let us all know how it goes. ;-)
Wow, that looks amazing. I wish I could have someone else make it for me :)
That looks so, so good!
I made this dressing over the weekend, but not the salad. It was very thick, like veggie dip. Overall, we liked it but next time I'll cut back on the garlic powder and add fresh minced parsley. I think I'll thin it out a little, too. Also, the recipe calls for fresh dill OR dried dill. I used dried because that's what I had on hand. Next time I'll use the fresh. I think it will make it even better.
How odd! My copy has 1 tsp olive oil in the ingredients for the roasted cauliflower recipe. You must have a RARE collectible version that needs to be on eBay, stat.
Tamie - I mentioned in my post that I used the soft silken tofu... I think that made the consistency just right!
Shannon - that is odd! My copy is getting pretty worn and battered, though... I doubt it would fetch very much! ;-)
I was wondering if I would like the sanctuary dressing cause I am not a fan of dill but I do like ranch. What do you think?
Also, if you are interested, they have sunflower sprouts usually at Central Market.
Lazy Smurf - I think it's worth a try! I didn't think it was overly dill-ish. I used dried dill, not fresh, and it seemed perfect to me. I think using fresh dill would make it more intense. I'd advise using the dried dill, if you're nervous, and maybe even scaling back on the amount at first, to see if you like it.
I think I will, actually I have been thinking about it nonstop!
OK - well, now I'm curious to find out how it goes! :-)
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