A Tasty Non-lettuce Salad {Guest Post}

Greetings friends!  Today is my first “real” day of vacation and I’m excited to start unveiling my guest bloggers.  First up is Smitha from Running with SD Mom.  Like her blog name says, she is a running mama who lives in sunny San Diego (I’m SO jealous!)  She is a fellow Girls Gone Sporty Ambassador and she has recently posted some BIG news….she just signed up for her FIRST full marathon and will be crossing the finish line at the Phoenix Marathon on February 28th!!  I’m so excited for her!  With Summer winding down in Boston soon, I know a lot of us, especially in the Northeast try to hold onto the good weather for as long as possible.  With good weather comes good food and this non-lettuce salad is the perfect addition to your recipe arsenal!  I actually made this salad yesterday for lunch and it was delicious, like so delicious I also had it as part of my dinner too!  Bon Appetite!

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Japanese cabbage salad recipe I have been obsessed lately with salads. The heat goes up and my stove and oven stay off. And I am a little weird. Okay a lot weird. I am not a huge fan of lettuce salads. So I create and find different non-lettuce salads and every once in a while I get lucky and find a super good one like this pasta salad. I made another delicious one the other day that I would like to share with Sara’s readers. Have you ever been to the San Sai Japanese restaurant ? They have a salad on their menu – Sumi Salad – and it is sweet, tangy, crunchy and delicious and I was determined to recreate it on my own. I found a similar version on Only My Best Recipes. You can find the original ingredients and instructions here .

• 1 T. olive oil
• 1/4 c. dry roasted sliced almonds
• 1/4 c. sesame seeds
• 6 T. rice vinegar
• ¼ c. granulated sugar
• 1 t. salt
• dash of pepper
• 3 green onions sliced
• 1 head green cabbage
• 3/4 cup chow mein noodles (found in the grocery store near the Asian foods)

Instructions

1. Sauté almonds and sesame seeds and oil over medium heat, stirring constantly. This took me about 4 minutes. You will know they are ready when you can smell them. Remove from heat and set aside to cool! Don’t burn them. Start over if you do – punishment!

2. Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, and pepper for the dressing using a whisk or my trusty plastic fork! Put in refrigerator to chill until ready to serve. 3.  Slice one head of green cabbage, slicing as thinly as possible. There is a TON of cabbage in a medium head. 4. Slice green onions. At this point, you can layer your salad. A lot of cabbage, a sprinkle of green onions and so on until both cabbage and green onions are done. (You can cover at this point for use the next day, store the almonds and seeds in a baggie all in the fridge) 5. Pour chilled dressing over the cabbage and onions and sprinkle with chow mien noodles and serve! 6.Do not mix the ingredients together unless you are serving within 20 minutes. The noodles will get soggy! Hope you like this salad! This is one of our favorites. We like to add grilled chicken or salmon to the plate to make it a main dish! Enjoy! And as always, I wish you Happy Feet, SD Mom

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Question of the day

Are you a salad lover?  Do you like to experiment with different types of salads?