Salad Ideas: Cucumber, Apple, and Walnut Salad in Sweet Dijon Vinaigrette

I keep not posting because so often I don't have pictures of the food I make (since my beautiful and much loved digital SLR died last year, I haven't had a camera that I actually enjoy using), and it only feels like a proper food post if I include photos. However, I'm going to try not to let that stop me from posting, though I do also hope to start using my father's very nice camera in the immediate future, and get a new camera for myself this coming year. But for now, I wanted to share a tasty salad I made tonight, without pictures!

Salad

• 1 large cucumber, sliced in fairly thin rounds
• 1-2 stalks celery, sliced thinly
• 1 apple, cored, halved, and sliced thinly
• A handful of walnuts

Dressing

I don't have amount for this one I'm afraid, but I can still give the ingredients!

• Grapeseed oil or other mild tasting oil
• Red wine vinegar
• Seedy dijon mustard
• Ginger honey (alternately ginger syrup, or honey and some freshly grated or powdered ginger)
• Salt

Mix dressing, toss with salad, and enjoy! This was a success with all salad eating family members, and my dad who usually isn't as into salads actually came back for thirds, never mind seconds.

I feel like lots of people have the idea that salad is boring, and approach it with a grudging attitude of getting through this annoying healthy thing as soon as possible. But with a little bit of creativity, there are SO many really tasty things you can do with salads. Salads are cool.

A Cool Canning Workshop

Last week I went to a canning workshop, held at this cool vegan kitchen called The People's Potato that serves free lunches every single week day during the school year at Concordia University. This was the first time I've seen their space, and woah is it nice! HUGE kitchen. Like, huge, with lots of shiny equipment. And it was really nice that not only was the canning workshop offered there, but it was offered for free. And since I've been wanting to start canning for a while now, but have been too terrified to try yet, it seemed like a good idea for me to go!

The workshop facilitators were great, the attendees really nice, and we each got to go home with a jar of Vietnamese pickles (which are extremely tasty) and apple butter (which smelled and looked positively delicious, though I haven't tasted it yet). Good times. And if you want to see a bit of it, there's an album of the workshop posted on Facebook!

Canning is cool.

Kimchi Adventures: Success!

I posted a few weeks ago about the beginnings of my first batch of kimchi. I was worried about whether it would turn out badly, if I'd know if it went bad, if I'd been careful enough about cleanliness when preparing it, etc. But after checking my little bottle of fermenting cabbage, hot peppers, radishes and spices regularly the first few days, then sporadically the next week or so, I stopped worrying. Because I knew just by it's smell and taste it was fine, and just put it in the fridge when I decided it tasted as fermented as I wanted it to be! If you've never had any experience with fermented cabbage, I can understand maybe being being unsure. But if you've ever had sauerkraut or kimchi, so have something to compare it to, it's pretty easy. 13 days after I put it out to ferment, I put my first ever batch of fermented food in the fridge. Yay!

First jar ever of home fermented food!

Kimchiii!

Because I've been bad at keeping up with blogging here, it's been three weeks since this first batch was put in the fridge, and it's only now nearly finished since I wasn't really sure what to do with it. I've found I really enjoy it in a salad, and I know it would also be tasty as a condiment on a burger or sausage or something. Still looking for more ideas though, so if anyone has any, please do let me know! :)