Saturday, August 15, 2009

More Salads! Including Portobello Salad with Mustard Dressing

Are you guys getting sick of all the salad? I promise I'll post about some delicious baked good next time.


I've admired this salad in Veganomicon ever since I got the cookbook but for some reason never made it. As soon as I decided to take part in Leng's salad challenge I knew this was something I'd have to make! Marinated roasted portobellos, avocado, red onion, chickpeas, a mustard dressing - what more can I ask for? The grain portion of my salad was some tortilla "chips" that I made by cutting a tortilla up and toasting it. This was my favourite salad out of the last 6 salads. The roasted portobellos were really good and I loved the marinade so will use it with other vegetables or tofu. However I do not enjoy how expensive portobellos are.


Friday's salad was the least delicious salad of the week and also included ruining one of our pots when we were steaming the beets. Hopefully we can salvage it. Anyway the salad included beets, red onion, homemade garlic oregano basil parmesan breadcrumbs (didn't use enough oil this time to get things to stick to the bread), grated carrot, tofu marinated in the leftover portobello marinade, olives, red leaf lettuce, and the rest of the mustard dressing from the day before.


Today's salad was delicious crunchy romaine lettuce, beets, chickpeas, grated Gouda cheese, whole wheat pasta, and Caesar dressing. I love having the gouda in there.

I find it hard to come up with salads that incorporate grains. I think I prefer eating something on the side like bread or a savoury muffin or something. And I think I'm getting stuck trying to come up with yummy salad combinations. Any suggestions?

Portobello Salad with Mustard Dressing
Adapted from Veganomicon

Serves 4

Dressing
1/4 cup smooth mustard (Ashley note: I used some balsamic fig mustard I had but next time I'll go for dijon.)
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tbsp pure maple syrup

Salad
8 cups mixed greens
1 avocado, peeled, halved, pitted and cubed
1 small red onion, sliced into very thin half moons
15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 recipe Roasted Portobellos (recipe follows)

Preparing the dressing: Whisk all the ingredients together in a small bowl.

Toss all the salad ingredients together, except the portobellos. Add the dressing. Divide up the salad and place the sliced warm portobellos on top of each salad.

Roasted Portobellos
Adapted from Veganomicon

1/2 cup wine
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 large or up to 4 small portobello caps

Clean the portobello caps. Combine all ingredients for the marinade in a glass pie plate or small casserole. Place the mushrooms upside down in the marinade and spoon a lot of the marinade into each cap to form a small pool. Preheat the oven to 400F and marinated for about 20 minutes.

Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil, use tongs to flip the caps over, and cook, uncovered, for another 10 minutes. Let it cool a bit and then slice the mushrooms very thinly on the diagonal to make nice meaty slices.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your salads all look so good. I should buy some beets to include in my salad as well. Anyway, I've been browsing through your blog looking for a croissant recipe and also stumbled upon others. With each new web page that loads, I've come to the conclusion that I want to marry your blog. EVERYTHING and I do mean everything looks just delicious. haha. good night!

Snooky doodle said...

what nice looking salads. The beet one looks the less delicious. I don t like everything pink on my plate :)

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

I've been craving salads and avocados like crazy, since it's so hot outside - love your newest creation!!

test it comm said...

That portobello salad looks really good!

Anonymous said...

I love, love, LOVE that salad from Veganomicon. It's probably my favorite salad.

Dana said...

These all look terrific. I do love marinated portobellos - yum! I finally joined a CSA and we got 2 huge heads of lettuce. Guess what's for dinner tonight?

jd said...

I could never tire of looking at the beautiful salads you make :)

Sorry to hear that the beats ruined one of your pots though - maybe that's why I hate beets! LOL!

Hannah said...

Nothing wrong with salads, at least when they're interesting and varied like these! Love all of your ideas so far. :)

veggievixen said...

i love salads! i'm trying to eat them every day, so i have to be a bit creative or else i'll be snoring soon. i loooooove roasted portobellos, oh my gosh. sounds fantastic with mustard dressing too. and roasted beets. good luck salvaging your pot, i use vinegar or ajax.

in terms of grain salads, i don't know that i've ever had a salad with lettuce and grains, but i've definitely had "salads" like tabbouleh or quinoa salad. maybe if you do a cold pasta salad with roasted peppers/mushrooms and lettuce. seems like it might work.

Unknown said...

Looks delicious!!!

Johanna GGG said...

oh no, another great recipe I must make - this looks superb - and I have tacos I need to use so maybe this is what I need

Johanna GGG said...

oh just noticed your question about grains and salads - I have lots of good salads on my blog (if I can blow my own trumpet) - one of the best one with grains is the bill's broccoli and rice salad - I am not usually a rice salad person but I loved this one

Amy said...

I'm not sick of salads!! Being winter I'm not eating any of them and am looking forward to them!

All of yours look amazing! I'm not much of a grain salad person either so I'm not much help there!

Homemade Heaven said...

Just as soon as summer comes, I am going to make all of these - they look delish!

Cookie baker Lynn said...

That portabello salad looks amazing! What a perfect lunch.

Chef Fresco said...

Looks awesome- love the portobellos! Dressing looks great too.

Ricki said...

I always love finding new salad recipes--I also have a hard time coming up with new ideas! These look great.

Steph said...

I love mushrooms!! I also love that you can make a salad hater like me actually want to eat salad!