Bean & Lentil Salad

I made this bean salad to take with me to Sheephouse Falls tomorrow and it's very good so I wanted to document the recipe so we can make it again. It was inspired by our homegrown green beans along with the fact that we already had the other ingredients on hand.

Bean & Lentil Salad

Bean Mixture

3 cups cooked lentils
1 1/2 cups cooked black turtle beans
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 1/2 cups fresh green beans cut in 1" lengths, and cooked until tender
1/2  cup chopped scallions
1/3 cup white onion, chopped fine

Vinaigrette

10 sprigs of fresh parsley, stemmed and chopped
5 tbsp white vinegar
5 tbsp vegetable or olive oil
5 tsp white sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt or to taste

Mix the vinaigrette in with the bean mixture until everything is coated. Refrigerate overnight.

Protein

You may notice I use lentils in a lot of our dishes. A lot of people ask us where we get our protein and honestly, I get a lot of mine from lentils. We throw them into everything; gravies, sauces, soups, roasted veggies, salads, burgers...pretty much anything. We also eat beans quite a bit, especially in our Mexican food, which we have quite often.

Here is a breakdown of the protein in this salad. Mind you, this in in the entire salad, but even a 1-cup serving would have a substantial amount of protein.

3 cups lentils 54 g
1 1/2 cups black turtle beans 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups chickpeas 58.5 g
1 1/2 cups green beans 3 g

8 cups of food containing 174 g of protein. That amounts to 21.75 g per cup.

How much protein is enough?
They say you should have 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. That means that most adults would need between 70-100 g of protein per day. Getting 1/5 to 1/4 in just one cup of bean salad is a great start to meeting the requirement.

Eggless Potato Salad

You might not think an egg-free potato salad would be as good, but you'd be surprised. I don't let many people try it because it's really too good to share, but any who have tried it absolutely loved it and three of them have asked for the recipe. And, since it's my favorite potato salad recipe now too, I thought I'd put it here.

Potato Salad

The Making of the Perfect Potato Salad

In this potato salad recipe you omit the eggs and use an egg-free mayonnaise, like vegenaise, which I love, love, love.

This recipe makes a pretty small salad. You may want to double it.

Mix in a large bowl:
8 potatoes, peeled and boiled
1 small onion, minced
1/4 cup minced red pepper
1 tbsp capers or minced green olives (optional, but not really)

Mix in a small bowl:
1 cup Vegenaise or Hellman's vegan mayonnaise
1/3 cup vinegar
2 or 3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp dijon
1 tbsp yellow mustard
Sea salt and black pepper to taste

Add small bowl mixture to large bowl mixture - don't add it all at once, just add it until your salad is the consistency you like.  You know how potatoes come in many sizes. Combine well.

Top the salad with something to make it look pretty, or interesting, like pepper, paprika, or some extra capers or olives. Maybe a sprig of parsley.

Chill.

Potato Salad

Potato Salad

You are welcome.

Lentil Salad

Lentil Salad

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup green, brown or black lentils
3 cups water
4 or 5 green onions
1 lemon
6 tbsp olive oil (psst: sometimes I only use 2 - 3)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp dried thyme
sea salt

Garlic, scallions, lentils, lemon

Directions

Cook lentils in the water about 20 minutes, then drain. Set aside to cool. Add the green onions and garlic and stir.

Squeeze the lemon. Mix the lemon, oil and thyme and add to lentil mixture. Salt with the sea salt to taste.

Cold plate featuring lentil salad