It's a Dicey Business

Israeli Salad

Kristen Makuch's latest newsletter has some great, easy-to-make, raw salad dressings, as well as instructions for making chopped salad to have on hand in the fridge. Reading it prodded me to make up a batch of Israeli salad — an old favorite, long neglected.

Check out Kristen's website and while there, sign up for her newsletter. It's a wonderful resource, filled with great ideas to give us some nice diversity on our raw food journey.

I first made an Israeli salad following Mollie Katzen's instructions in her fabulous cookbook, The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. It was my first vegetarian cookbook, a Christmas gift in 1985 from my son, Bill. Many more of Ms Katzen's volumes have found there way into my collection over the years, but the first one is perhaps the most memorable . It was certainly the most used.

Mollie's version includes minced dill pickle, sliced pimiento-stuffed green olives as well as sliced radishes. Most versions you find on the Internet are pretty straight forward with a simple dice of tomato, cucumber, scallions, parsley (or an assortment of fresh herbs such as dill and/or mint). The salad is dressed with a little olive oil and the juice from a large lemon. For the sake of 'raw', I made mine without the added olives and pickles and no radishes, but only because I had no radishes in the house.

Basic Israeli Salad

3 Kirby cukes, unpeeled, diced

3 plum tomatoes, diced

3 sliced green onions - white and green part

1 medium red pepper, diced

1/2 - 1 cup finely-minced fresh parsley

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

juice from 1 large lemon

salt and freshly ground pepper

Toss all ingredients together gently and chill. It keeps well in the refrigerator for several days and is great served on its own, but I like to incorporate it with fresh, crisp lettuce.

This big bowl of juicy, crunchy greens with the vibrant, flavorful diced vegetables makes a super lunch or quick supper. With the Israeli salad ready in the fridge, washing and spinning some hearts of Romaine makes for an instant meal.

For those of you who are pursuing a whole foods diet, but not necessarily 100% raw, here's a nice little finishing touch:

Ciabatta with fresh ricotta and organic fig spread.

The bread, organic white whole wheat, is sliced super thin, then lightly smeared with a teaspoon of fresh ricotta cheese and a half teaspoon of fig spread. Low on calories, big on flavor — a wonderful way to finish off a light veggie meal and the perfect mate for a mellow Merlot.

Whole fresh foods — fabulous flavors, nifty nutrition — give it a try.