It has been so muggy here at the moment, the summer weather is bringing moments of rain and then the sun comes back out and it gets so hot! Not complaining though I am so fortunate to live on the Gold Coast and I do prefer the warmer weather, longer days and more time to get creative with dinner ideas. With this sort of weather I love eating raw veggies with yummy dressings. At the moment I have been experimenting with Thai and Asian influenced ingredients to create some new dressings to top off my salads.

What I love about this salad is that I used up all the bits and pieces I had in my veggie box (carrots, capsicum, broccoli, beans and cabbage). It was so quick, the longest part was waiting for the rice to cook and cool down! Also, I hate wasting food, in my house everyone knows that leftovers are used up either in another dish or for lunches the next day. It is important to not only think about different flavours but textures when creating dishes (something my dad taught me!). So I toasted up so coconut flakes, pumpkin and sunflower seeds to add a crunchy element to the salad which made it even more addictive with the Thai dressing!

You could also serve this up warm, which i did last night and it was really lovely with some roasted mushrooms (my fav!!) but would also be yummy with some pan-fried tofu. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this new recipe and please give me a message and let me know what you enjoyed serving the salad with.

Amanda x

Ingredients and Method.

Dressing:

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
• 1 tablespoon chives
• 9g Galangal chopped in small pieces
• 3 tablespoons tamari/soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons cashew butter/nut butter
• 1 teaspoon vegan fish sauce
• pinch chilli (optional)
• 8 tablespoons coconut cream/yoghurt (use the cream on the top if using coconut cream)
• small piece of ginger chopped up

Place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth and combined well. This dressing will go a little firm when refrigerated. So I used some to dip some veggies straight into it and the rest of the leftovers I just left it out of the fridge for around 30 minutes before adding more sauce on top! It really depends how much you want to add to your salad.

For the salad I placed 2 carrots, 1 capsicum, 250g beans, small head of broccoli and 1/4 of a cabbage in the food processor and pulsed it until the veggies where roughly chopped. Be carful not to pulse too much otherwise your veggies will go mushy! I then mixed the veggies through some brown basmati rice (1 cup of cooked rice, rinsed well and allow to cool down).

Now for the crunchy element! In a pan place

• 1 cup coconut flakes

• 1/2 cup of mixed sunflower and pumpkin seeds

• 2 teaspoon coconut sugar

On a low heat keep mixing until the coconut and seeds are lightly toasted.

Now you are ready to place all the ingredients together. As I mentioned before I had a little sauce leftover so place half into the rice salad season with salt and pepper and taste. Now you can add in more or keep aside as a snack with raw veggies or with some avocado on rice crackers, yum!

Please share your creations with me on social media.

Have an amazing day x