Last Saturday: Fantastic salads and how to make them

This Saturday I travel to the far lands of the north to hold A Taste of the Mediterranean in Pino Kitchen Studio, Teachers Village, Quezon City.

Discover why the Mediterranean diet is considered one of the healthiest on earth and how you can adapt certain Mediterranean ingredients and cooking methods to your cooking repertoire – for yumminess factor and health factor. We’ll be covering a refreshing arugula salad, chickpea ratatouille, Provencal-style green beans, couscous pilaf, and an apple and almond gratin.

Sign up and get your cute butts to class! Hope to see you either in the morning session (10am to 2pm) or the afternoon session (4pm to 8pm).

When life gives you leaves and fresh vegetables, sure you can make juices and smoothies out of them (yes, true story, you can, as written here and here.). You could also make amazing looking salads that are just begging for you to eat them. Like in this class.

Mambo kidney bean chopped salad

This chopped salad would be something you could easily whip up at home for a healthful yummy dinner. For some reason though, Metro Manila restaurants just can’t seem to make decent salads. Anyway, Mambo over here didn’t need any fancy ingredients – just good ol’ kidney beans, romaine, singkamas, cilantro, and other good stuff. We’d tell you, but we’d be giving away our secrets…

Ninja seaweed salad with avocado and tofu

This Ninja Seaweed Salad with Avocado and Tofu celebrated wakame in all its glory. If there’s one thing I would love people to do, apart from eating more vegetables, it’s to eat more sea vegetables. Seaweed is so good for you – high in protein, calcium, alginic acid, and iodine, it has the ability to bind toxic metals in the body and flush ‘em out. Plus, it tastes so darn good with a miso-sesame dressing.

Okay, the white tofu might scare people to bits but blanching it mellows out its “beany” taste and receives the dressing oh so lovingly. Avocados make the world go round, so we threw one into the mix.

Our bean-and-grain salad for the class was this number – Turkish-spiced chickpea and brown rice salad, served with a side of roasted veg. Cooking the rice with a blend of spices really added flavor and elevated the humble grain to that of royalty. The addition of fresh herbs? You’d forget you were eating healthfully.

Mediterranean green bean and caramelized onion salad

This was a non-leafy green salad that became a hit with the class. The vegetables were blanched but dressed with a flavorful vinaigrette. Cannellini beans thrown in for protein, and the caramelized onions just married everything together perfectly.

And last but not the least:

Glass noodle salad with a ton of veggies and Thai peanut sauce

Boy, was this salad a site for sore eyes. Striking colors does a salad good. We used glass noodles to ease up on the gluten and added a TON of vegetables, which by the way, were not a chore to chew, thank you very much. A punchy Thai peanut dressing got everyone salivating for more. Toasted peanuts for crunch and yumminess.

Our spread:

And the lovely ladies that composed Fantastic Salads class:

Catch A Taste of the Mediterranean this Saturday at PKS, Quezon City!