Ginger Carrot Salad Dressing

My favorite sushi restaurant serves salad with ginger carrot dressing. It is so good! Since first trying it, I have wanted to make it myself. I finally looked online and tried it out, adapting the recipe I selected. I really enjoy it. It's been really good on kale salad- chopped fresh kale, red cabbage, and carrots. (And sunflower seeds too!) This is what I did:

1/3 cup canola oil
1/3 cup vinegar*
2 large carrots, peeled and roughly chopped(prepare for blender)
2 tablespoons peeled and roughly chopped fresh ginger
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon agave nectar
1/4 teaspoon salt

Smooth in blender. (You may alternatively use a food processor to finely chop)

*Next time I want to try 1/4 cup vinegar. Personal preference; my husband didn't think it was too strong.
I want to try having some of the carrot finely shredded, and set aside to stir into the rest of the blended dressing.
Original recipe calls for honey; I just thought I would prefer the taste of agave, and I have it on hand.
Recipe calls for rice wine vinegar; I don't know the difference in flavor; I used what I have. Also calls for extra-virgin olive oil. Recipe also calls for toasted sesame oil in addition. So there are a lot of small differences you could play around with.

My recipe is adapted from "Carrot Ginger Dressing" from cookieandkate.com. I recommend going directly to this website; she has beautiful pictures, and you can see her original recipe and try it out or vary your own!

sunflower seed butter

3 cups roasted sunflower seeds, unsalted
1/3 cup canola oil

In Vitamix, start on variable, speed 1 and quickly increase speed to 10, then turn to high. Use tamper. In one minute you should hear a high pitched sound. Then watch for butter to flow. At this point you should hear a low laboring sound. Stop.

Caution from Vitamix recipe book: Over processing will cause serious overheating to your machine! Do not process for more than 1 minute after mixture starts circulating freely.

Notes:

-may roast seeds in pan or in oven. 3 cups seeds and 1 T. canola oil.
-use immediately and freeze whatever you won't use immediately. The sunflower seed butter gets "nippy" as it sits, even in a half hour or so. May store in fridge for a couple days if you don't mind some "nippy-ness." But it gets more nippy the longer it's there. It doesn't seem to get this way in the freezer. Interesting I also had frozen sunbutter that has thawed a couple days in fridge and it hasn't had the nippy-ness either.
-yummy to mix equal ratios unflower seed butter and frosting, with optional chocolate chips or raisins, crushed cereal (plain cheerios or chex) and form into balls. Freeze immediately(in ball form, so easier to eat partially thawed) what you won't eat in one sitting.

Variation: Almond butter- roasted almonds and 1/2 cup canola oil. Pour off excess oil next day.

Lentil-Rice soup and homemade broths

This lentil soup is savory! My 4 yr. old exclaimed, "I love the broth!" She ate all of the soup really well- lentils, rice, carrots, and broth. My 3 yr old took out the celery : ) but ate the rest.

Like I mentioned in my "Many Beans Soup," I don't use recipes when I cook bean soup, so something may be different each time. Even the broth base I use depends on what I have on hand and if there's something I want to use up in the fridge or freezer.

Here's a diversion from the lentil soup about homemade broths:

I often save liquid from meats and from steaming vegetables. If I think I have a use for it in the next couple days, I keep it in the fridge. Sometimes I just freeze it. These liquids can be frozen in freezer containers or in ice cube trays and then freezer bags. Sometimes I end up dumping it out- if it's been in the fridge and I haven't used it. It's nice, to me, though, to use vegetable water whenever possible, because there are good water-soluable vitamins in the liquid that I don't want to miss out on.

As far as vegetable water goes, you can use it instead of regular water whenever you need to cook something with water. Potato water is especially helpful in making non-dairy gravy or sauces- it has more flavor dimension than regular water. You can make a good meat stock or vegetable stock that's flavorful for soups, sauces, or gravies. Basically you just boil a meat bone, with some meat left on it, with various herbs/seasonings, for several hours. The vegetable stock I remember you can brown the vegetables for more flavor, then I think you boil them in water. You can look up recipes for stock if you're interested. Right now I like conveniently keeping the meat juices and vegetable water that I have just from my everyday cooking, and using them.

Now to the savory Lentil-Rice soup:

Broth- this time I used hamburger broth from the fridge- about 1 cup, and also about 1/4 cup chicken broth. I add these liquids in a measuring cup, then added water up to the 4 cup line.

I had recently cooked big batches of hamburger meat to put in the freezer. I had seasoned the hamburger with salt, onion, garlic, and pepper. I poured off the juices and fats into a glass jar. When cooled a bit, I set it in the fridge. When all the way cooled, the juices and fats separated. When I wanted broth for my soup, I just scraped off the fat and threw that away. I had about 1 cup of flavorful liquid left. The chicken broth was simply juice poured off from cooking chicken thighs or drumsticks with season-all. The fat had separated from the liquid so I could scrape off the fat and discard. I think I left just a bit of fat- I didn't scrape it off thoroughly- for a bit of flavor.

salt- about 1 tsp.
lentils- about 1/2 cup.
celery, chopped
bay leaves- 2 medium
pepper to taste

Simmer until tender. Then add rice that has already been cooked.

"Cream of Chicken" Soup

This is a pretty good non-dairy, no soy, no wheat "cream of chicken" soup. It has more dimension than a chicken base/water/cornstarch mixture.

6 c boiling water
1 c fine white bean flour
1 c diced chicken pieces
2 T chicken or vegetable soup base

Over medium heat, whisk bean flour into boiling water and add base. Stir, cook 3 min., blend 1-2 min. in blender. Add chicken.