Shake it up 'yo!

Hey y'all, this is a recipe post!

A real recipe not one for dog food I promise, and it's even kind of diety. I'd like to preface this by saying that I am not a food blogger. Nor am I a foody. I like to leave that stuff to the pro's - Oh Basmati Lime how I dream of your cooking and Spontaneous Foodgasm where ya been girl? Missing you. (I know, huge move, renovations etc. Some of us live vicariously you know!)

In any case, on occasion a recipe will catch my eye or I'll make something up that becomes part of my regular (read: easy) food rotation when it's my night to cook. Yeah, we do that in my house. My night, his night, my night, we eat out, grab take away, we order pizza, ugh, it can go down hill very quickly. So in the interest of staying on top of my game, I've been looking for some healthy easy recipes that will make leftovers for lunch the next day or stored up for when my night comes back around.

And I stumbled across this recipe for Crunchy Thai Salad. Don't worry, it's more than a salad. Have you ever wondered who the heck would ever buy a salad cookbook? I mean come on. It's lettuce. Add any vegetable you choose and top with some kind of dressing. It's not rocket science and I'm not about to stand squinting over a book reading instructions. And yet...

Ha ha here we are. This technically has cooked ingredients so it's not a 'typical' salad in my books. Now I don't know if you've been seeing this, but since last year, Mason jars seem to be making a come back in a big way, used as everything from stemmed wine glasses (they're called red neck wine glasses, I kid you not, my sister bought them for me) to tea mugs, shot glasses, to smoothie jars with straws coming out of the top. Well now it seems, Mason Jar salads are like the new fast food. Yes people, you heard it here first. 

Check it out.

I made those. Yeah I did! Usually I just rip the picture off from where ever I found the recipe, but this was from a magazine and well quite frankly a photo of a photo looks kinda tacky.

You can totally make these, trust me, the hardest part of this recipe is actually getting the stuff into the small opening of the jar, other than that, you're golden.

So here it is. Enjoy.

Crunchy Thai Mason Jar Salad

You'll need 4 glass jars with lids.

Ingredients
1 cup black rice rinsed
2 cups frozen shelled edamame beans
4 large carrots peels and diced
6-8 radishes trimmed and sliced
4 cups chopped red cabbage
1 large red bell pepper seeded and diced
6 scallions, sliced thinly (light green parts)

Dressing
6 tbsp coconut milk
1/4 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves
2 tbsp natural unsalted peanut butter
2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
1tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp raw honey
1 tsp toasted sesame oil

Okay so I have to make a small amendment here. I do not happen to have natural peanut butter, coconut milk, rice vinegar, raw honey or sesame oil kicking around my humble kitchen (Did you read the part about not being a foodie? I don't even have ketchup for crying out loud, lucky to have salt and pepper!! Okay I'm done now.) 

So I bought a nice sort of similar style dressing. I think I'll live.

 



























Also, I'd never made black rice before so I picked up this Lotus Foods one so I'd have directions. Honestly, I have no business posting food stuff really, but I digress.

Here's how you make it.

Directions
1) Cook the rice.
Spread cooked rice in an even layer on a plate to cool thoroughly. OR, you can do it like I did and cook it in the morning, then stick it in the fridge until the evening when you're ready to make the meal.

2) Meanwhile, cook the edamame, drain, rinse in cold water and set aside to also cool. Refer to my fridge note above 'kay.

3) For the dressing if you're making it:
In a small blender or food processor, blend all dressing ingredients until smooth.

4) Divide dressing among the jars. Because I used store bought, I guesstimated that I'd need about a 1/4 cup each. Sounds like a lot but it has a lot to cover. You can use your best judgement.
Then layer the rest of the ingredients in the following order;
carrots, radishes, cabbage, edamame, bell pepper, scallions, and rice.

NOTE: they said there would be a bit of space at the top which will allow you to shake up the ingredients with the dressing when you're ready to eat. Mine didn't really have space, but again, I just used the jars I had and I might have over done the cabbage??
In any case, screw the lids on tight and you can refrigerate these babies for up to 5 days. Cool, huh? 

When you're ready to serve, shake it up and dump it into a bowl and enjoy!

Here's the nutritional info per jar
435 calories
15 g of fat
68 g Carbohydrates
12 g fibre
17 g sugar
16 g protein
226 mg Sodium

That's it. Easy peasey, lemon squeezey.

I might top mine with a tiny bit of avocado and a few sunflower sprouts upon serving. 

Bon appetite!
Shan