Salad!

Here's a quick salad that I made one evening for dinner. I often forget how easy it is to whip a delicious salad together, and they are so satisfying and delicious!!
YUM!!
Ingredients in this salad are as follows:
-red leaf lettuce, washed and ripped into pieces
-cherry tomatoes and avocado cut into chunks
-grated carrot
-canned black beans, rinsed
-sliced almonds, toasted (you can toast nuts in about 5 minutes on a tray in your toaster oven, set to 375F..... or also on the stove in a dry pan on medium-high heat)
-mushrooms and asparagus (I sliced these up and then just fried them in a pan until they were tender. I prooooobably doused them in balsamic vinegar once they were half-way done)

Toss everything together, and then all you need is a dressing!
My go to dressing is a mixture of equal parts white wine vinegar and extra virgin olive oil, with about half a lemon's worth of juice, half a teaspoon of grainy mustard, a teensy bit of agave nectar, and a dash of white truffle oil. It's SUPERB!

I know that white truffle oil is expensive, and a bit of a luxury item, but you need such a small amount to add lovely fragrant flavour to a dish. It's meant to be used as a finishing oil (you put it on for flavour once the dish is fully prepared; it's not meant to be used during the actual cooking process), so you basically just need a dash. It makes an excellent addition to salads, or gives a special je ne sais quoi to soups (it's AMAZING on white bean soups!)

Oh yeah, here's the salad!

Tomato and black bean hummus

A few posts back I talked very briefly about the versatility of bean dips, and how you can add basically anything to them.
So here is a prime example: Tomato and black bean hummus!!



Alright... so I will be the first to admit that it looks a little like cat food... but it was so yummy!!

The recipe:
-1 large can of chickpeas
-1 large can of black beans
-half a small can of tomato paste
-juice from one lemon
-about half a teaspoon of maple syrup
-2 tablespoons of tahini
-between 1-2 tablespoons of olive oil
-half a teaspoon of chilli paste
-GARLIC

Blend everything until it reaches the consistency that you desire. For a runnier hummus, add a bit of water.

I get the feeling that I might be forgetting something from this recipe... but you get the idea (hopefully).

I think that I am going to try testing out different bean and seasoning combinations more this month, so get ready for lots of bean dips!!! om nom nom.