Saturday, February 23, 2013

Birthdays, outings, and an Asian-inspired chickpea salad

Shadow people walking through glittering lights; Kings Park, Perth.

February is often a busy month. It is the middle of the birthday season that hits a lot of families at this time of year. My brother, Mr Bite's sister-in-law (does that make her my sister-in-law? what if the law is de facto? confusing!) and one of my school friends all had birthday celebrations in the last week.

As I've noted before, it is also the Perth International Arts Festival and we are continuing to see some enjoyable free events. The lights above are currently set up in Kings Park, Perth's main botanical gardens, as are some other light displays around Perth. We went to an outdoor street theatre a week ago where shop fronts were turned over to actors, who played out nine separate scenes over the evening.

My brother's birthday cake (not made by me).

On the birthday side of things, my brother's celebrations provided another opportunity for barbecue-cooked tofu. This time I made tofu bacon, and my sister remarked that it was indeed reminiscent of bacon. She seems to have recently discovered tofu, or at least well prepared tofu, and now happily eats it alongside meat.

Barbecued tofu bacon

Birthday celebrations for our sister-in-law (I'm adopting 'our') were fish and chips at the Kings Park botanical gardens. It is getting dark around 7pm now, instead of the 8pm that characterised mid-summer, so our picnic was a little on the dark side. It didn't matter.

Picnicking at night has certain challenges...

I took along two salads to provide food options for me. One was a basic green salad, which others enjoyed alongside their fish and chips, and the other was an Asian-inspired chickpea salad, which I did ate rather a lot of on the night and have been continuing to enjoy since.

...but enjoyable views; Perth by night.

The chickpea salad was loosely inspired by my recent lunch at The Raw Kitchen Cafe, in the sense that it included coriander and shredded zucchini, apple and carrot. It also included cabbage, soy sauce, a dash of agave nectar, and, of course, chickpeas. I loved it. I have eaten it for at least one meal a day for four days and am a little sad that it is now finished!


If you have need for an easy, make-ahead salad dish that backs protein and vegetables in one, I hope you enjoy it too.

Asian-inspired chickpea salad
Easy to make if you have a food processor, and low fuss even if you don't.
Vegan and high raw.
Serves 4.


Ingredients
1 medium zucchini
1 medium carrot
1/4 white cabbage
1 red apple (I used a Pink Lady variety)
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped
2 cups cooked chickpeas
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp kecap manis (or another of soy sauce and add a little more agave)
1 tsp mirin (rice vinegar)
1 tsp agave (or palm sugar)

Method
If you have a food processor, grate the zucchini, carrot, cabbage and apple using the grater attachment. If you don't have a food processor, finely chop the cabbage and then grate the zucchini, carrot and apple manually.

Place the shredded vegetables and apple, chopped coriander, and chickpeas in a large bowl.

In a small bowl, combine the soy sauce, kecap manis, mirin and agave. Mix to combine and then pour over the salad and stir through.

Serve cold.


What is happening for you this month?

31 comments:

  1. Our busy birthday month is October - which is also our anniversary and holidays and busy work season! February is quiet for us!
    Any excuse for tofu is a good one!!!!! ;-)
    Love the look of this salad - I am definitely going to give it a try.

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    1. I hope you enjoy it if you do try it Sandy - and yes, any excuse for tofu is a good one! I am loving that my family (well, some of them) have started enjoying it too.

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  2. Your brother's birthday cake was spectacular! I do like the sound of this salad - and it looks refreshing.

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    1. My Mum did exceptionally with it! Really impressive :)

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  3. oh how i wish u were here to make me a cake like that for my birthday!! way too pretty and i'm sure just as delicious!! :)

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    1. It did go down very well! That one was courtesy of my Mum, but I'm sure she'd share with you if you were in town ;)

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  4. the outdoor theatre sounds most interesting and I love the lights - did you get to eat some chips at the fish and chips picnic - I love the idea of chips and salad and your salad sounds great - though I often can't be bothered getting out the grater attachment for the food processor.

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    1. I must say, I have to be grating a lot to be bothered with the food processor. It's funny how time saving devices do seem like more hassle than they're worth sometimes! It was worth it in this case though, and there were plenty of chips to go around - in fact too many, as is always the case! - but I'm not a big chips fan really.

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  5. Cake looks amazing and an outside picnic sounds amazing too! I hope all of your family has a wonderful birthday month Kari! :)

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  6. Feb is a busy month for me also! And it doesn't help that it is so short! What a great salad this is...love the Asian flavors.

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    1. Definitely a busy month for you - not least because you are one of the featured birthdays ;)

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  7. Celebrations always make for a busy but fun month. A picnic in King's Park seems like the perfect birthday dinner. That's one of my all-time favorite places in Perth. Just love it there.

    It's been a busy last couple of months for me so that's why I may have seemed absent for awhile but both NutriDude and I have been following along!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by now! I hope you get some quiet and time to yourself soon :-) It's nice to think of you remembering Kings Park - it is a gorgeous spot.

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  8. Sounds like you've been having a great time getting out and about enjoying Perth. The picnic sounds lovely and I am impressed with your brother's birthday cake. And I love the sound of your Asian-inspired chickpea salad xx

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    1. Thank you Charlie, both the cake and the salad turned out rather well!

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  9. Happy birthday to everyone! That chickpea salad looks amazing - good for work lunches, and also a good food-gift for friends-with-baby :)

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    1. Teehee, it would indeed do nicely for the friends-with-baby purpose too!

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  10. Yum, that salad looks fantastic. We have a very busy October/November period birthday wise, it is funny how they come in clusters. Most of my month has been spent getting into a new routine with my new job. I'm not quite there yet but it has been fun if most definitely busy!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Fun but busy is at least better than just busy - and I hope you continue to enjoy the new role :) It is funny how birthdays come in clusters, and an amusing coincidence that the January-March cluster is present for both my family and Mr Bite's!

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  11. Lovely sounding salad Kari.
    It's been a raw and vegany day here. I was having lunch with a friend of mine and actually thought of you while tucking in to my caramel cheesecake- raw, sugar free, soy free, vegan cheesecake that is. Absolutely delicious!! Seriously, it would convert even the most hardened :-)

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    1. I am quite thrilled that made you think of me :-) It sounds delicious! What a great lunch.

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  12. Tofu bacon sounds very interesting. Does it really taste like bacon?

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    1. I have hardly eaten bacon in my life, but the word from those who have is yes :-)

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  13. Oh I can't imagine how gorgeous Perth nights are at this time of year!!!

    I love picnicing at night and chick peas are my favourite inclusion in salads so this dish would be a real winner for me.

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    1. Picnics at night do have a certain something that day time picnics don't :) And I'm glad you like the look of the salad - chickpeas are a great addition to just about any salad dish.

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  14. It's birthday season around here as well. I had one crazy weekend with all of the birthday celebrations going on. Though I feel sorry for you that it's getting darker earlier over there, I'm pretty glad that we're stealing that sunlight over here. It's staying light out until around 6:30/7 now, instead of the depressing 5 o'clock darkness that we had to endure throughout December and January.

    Thanks for this recipe! It's been difficult for me to plan out meals with my school schedule. (I have days that I'm there from 11:30-9:30)...so this is a quick and easy salad that I can look forward to eating during those long days. :)

    ReplyDelete
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    1. 5 o'clock darkness is still a long way off (and in fact I don't think we ever quite get it!) :-) I'm glad you're starting to get more daylight back in your part of the world, and hope you get a bit more time to yourself soon. Those long days must be tough to schedule for!

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  15. Wow busy month!!

    This recipe looks delicious, I love Asian flavours!

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  16. Mmm this looks gorgeous! Thank you for sharing this with Healthy Vegan Fridays. Check back on Friday to see if you were one
    of the Top 3! We hope to see you again
    this week. You can submit a post from
    Friday to end of Tuesday:

    http://www.greenthickies.com/healthy-vegan-friday

    ReplyDelete

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