Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook! So glad you’re here!
Today, I’m continuing my series on home-keeping vs. house-keeping. The former is making a house a home and the latter is swabbing toilets. Martha Stewart made an empire out of home-keeping, but also made it intimidating. For the last few weeks, I have been exploring ways of making the art of home-keeping not quite so onerous.
Yesterday, I featured a simple way of making delicious tomato-basil soup in a flash.
Today, I’m featuring a super-quick way to make an elegant, healthy salad.
First–show of hands: who cringes when someone says “why don’t you bring a salad?” A really good salad takes a lot of cleaning, shredding, peeling, chopping and…time.
Or does it?
Enter pickled cauliflower, carrots, onions and jalapeños:
If I don’t have a jar of these pickles in the fridge at all times, I start to get anxious. They’re deliciously tangy, with just enough spice to be interesting, but not too hot. They’re totally addictive and once you make them, you’ll understand why you want them in your life from now on. I put these pickles on sandwiches, on a charcuterie board and sometimes, I just stand at the counter and house them right out of the jar.
But I think the hands-down best thing about them is that they create an instant salad–just add lettuce! They’re colorful, flavorful and crunchy and when paired with a nice vinaigrette, you’ve got a healthy salad in about five minutes–maybe less.
But don’t stop there! Mix the brine with a little mayonnaise or commercial ranch dressing and create the best-in-the-world dressing for coleslaw. Chop up a few of the pickled veggies to add to the shredded cabbage and you’ve got an elegant take on a picnic staple:
And if you want to get really creative, go ahead and use the brine to perk up vegetables or even soups.
Thanks for joining me today! Tune in again for more fun with home-keeping!
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
