Salad Days

Ezra Klein has a piece in today’s Washington Post about meat and climate change. He highlights the fact that many top environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council, basically refuse to talk about diet.

Yet diet is often the easiest way to reduce your carbon footprint:

The pity of it is that compared with cars or appliances or heating your house, eating pasta on a night when you’d otherwise have made fajitas is easy. It doesn’t require a long commute on the bus or the disposable income to trade up to a Prius. It doesn’t mean you have to scrounge for change to buy a carbon offset. In fact, it saves money. It’s healthful. And it can be done immediately. A Montanan who drives 40 miles to work might not have the option to take public transportation. But he or she can probably pull off a veggie stew. A cash-strapped family might not be able buy a new dishwasher. But it might be able to replace meatballs with mac-and-cheese. That is the whole point behind the cheery PB&J Campaign, which reminds that “you can fight global warming by having a PB&J for lunch.” Given that PB&J is delicious, it’s not the world’s most onerous commitment.

I certainly have no ambition to curb my love for bacon. I’ll just point out that eating a juicy salad instead of a hamburger just one night a week will do more for improving the planet than eating a 100% local diet (which in all practicality is nearly impossible to do).

I had the will power to endure 10 minutes in my 104 degree kitchen yesterday. (Yes! The thermometer said 104!) Fortunately, this salad took only 9 minutes to make. I took it over to my parents lake-side house and enjoyed the salad with a frosty Negro Modelo while sitting IN the lake. Life is so sweet sometimes!

Radish & Orange Chop Salad
Serves 3-4

3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp lime juice
1 garlic clove, minced
1 medium cucumber, peeled, halved lengthwise, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch dice
10 radishes, halved and sliced thin (about 1 1/2 cups)
2 oranges , peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces, and drained (about 1 cup)
1 ripe but still firm avocado, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 small red onion, minced (about 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
1 romaine heart, washed, dried, and cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 3 cups)
3 ounces Manchego cheese, shredded
1/2 cup unsalted pepitas
salt and ground black pepper, to taste

Whisk oil, lime juice, and garlic together in large bowl. Add cucumber, radishes, oranges, avocado, onion, and cilantro; toss and let stand at room temperature to blend flavors. Add lettuce, cheese, and pepitas; toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Motivation to cook and outside temperature are inversely related. The hotter it gets, the less likely anyone is to step into the kitchen and whip up a tasty meal. Salads buck that trend a little, because for the most part no heat is involved in their creation. They’re also fast, meaning less time standing on your feet and more time with a cool drink in the shade.

Yesterday, with temps reaching into the triple digits (I saw 102 degrees at 3 p.m.), I was inspired to create not one, but two cooling salads for dinner. The first was a No-Peanut Noodle Salad that I am dedicating to Cully, the son of some great friends who also happens to be allergic to nuts. The light sauce that replaces the typical, heavy-going peanut sauce in this salad is fat free and deliciously refreshing when it’s hot outside. The second salad was a twist on the usual cucumber salad. It has a bit of chopped avocado just for fun!

Cully’s No-Peanut Noodle Salad
Serves 2-3

7 ounces rice noodles
2 tbsp rice vinegar
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp chili-garlic sauce + more for passing at the table
1 cup chopped mango (about 1 large or 1 1/2 small mangos)
1 cup shredded carrot
3 green onions, chopped

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Place noodles in the boiling water and remove from heat. Soak for 10-15 minutes until the noodles are soft. Drain and rinse with cold water to cool.

While the noodles are “cooking” combine the vinegar, lime juice, fish sauce, sugar, and chili-garlic sauce to make the dressing. Pour over the cooled noodles and toss with the remaining ingredients. Pass additional chili-garlic sauce or sriracha sauce at the table for those that want to spice up the salad a bit more.

Cucumber-Avocado Salad
Serves 2-3

1 medium cucumber, chopped
1/2 avocado, chopped
2 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp low-sodium soy sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos

Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and chill until ready to serve. A little bit of lump crab meat would be delicious in here as well.