I often make more brown rice than I need, so I was inspired to create a rice salad to use up my leftover rice. There was a recipe for a crunchy vegan rice salad in a Molly Katzen cookbook that I had made long ago. I didn’t reconsult her cookbook to work on this recipe, but I had some of idea of what I wanted to attain based on her sweet and sour crunchy rice salad recipe.
Ingredients
1 cup cooked rice (you can certainly use more – just use more of the other ingredients)
1 zucchini, chopped into half moons, sauted in coconut oil (I’ve tried it with olive oil – I strongly prefer the coconut oil)
1 handful sunflower seeds (you can also try cashews, slivered almonds, pumpkin seeds and/or sesame seeds)
1/2 cup orange juice or juice of 1 orange (or a combination of both)
1 tsp. tamari sauce
1/2 tsp. sesame oil
2 chopped red radishes (or chop up a red pepper – the idea is to get the color red – you could also try chopped carrots)
1 handful chopped fresh parsely (or cilantro)
3 chopped scallions
How to Make the Rice Salad
Assuming you already have cooked rice, coat the rice with olive oil. Add sesame oil, tamari and orange juice. Saute the zucchini (chopped into half circle shapes) until tender. Add chopped radish, seeds and chopped parsley. Toss together. Refrigerate and serve one day later.
About the Crunchy Vegan Rice Salad Recipe
This recipe can be altered as you please. The idea is to add sweet, salty and sour flavors to a grain. Toss in crunchy foods, and you have a delicious, healthy salad. What would you add to a rice salad?
Thank you to everyone who responded to my images of rice salad. Appreciate the feedback.
I have a rice salad recipe that I am planning to post. I created two versions of the photo of the rice salad. Which rice salad photo do you prefer? (top or bottom)
This post is all spring blossoms. Enjoy these magnolia buds.
If you walk down North Eighth Avenue in Highland Park, you can see trees in bloom – magnolia trees.
Cherry blossoms are also beautiful.
I love seeing magnolia flowers on the ground with dandelions. The blossoms don’t last – maybe you can see them for two weeks each spring?
Periwinkle with dandelions – this is a different version of the photo I posted yesterday. That post had reflections on recent events; today, I just want to relax among spring blossoms.
What blossoms of spring appear in your neighborhood?
Dandelion and Periwinkle as seen in April 2013
This past week I was more than a little distracted by the news in Boston. I grew up in the Boston area – I used to go to the Boston Marathon as a child when it passed through Newton, cheering on the runners. I lived in Cambridge, worked at MIT and spent time in Watertown. I have many friends who live there. Despite my intense interest in the details, I have no desire to become a political blogger. I will refer you to the blog of my friend Daled Amos – he writes well, explains political topics if you want more information and has a background as a teacher. He often quotes other political bloggers.
I have hopes to write a Nature Notes post this week and maybe a recipe for rice salad. If not, they will show up next week. Meanwhile, a few notes of interest:
I had the opportunity to attend a lecture at Rutgers by Professor Maud Mandel on Muslims and Jews in France: Genealogy of a Conflict. In a tiny nutshell, her premise was to “question past monocausal explanations” (I believe she meant she was suggesting more than one cause). Her book is coming out in January 2014; here are a few of the causes she mentioned:
Jews from Algeria made citizens of France; Muslims were not. (1870)
North African Jews had welcome from established Jewish community; Muslims had no one, initially.
In 1968, Maoists (a group of Leftists) tried to convince Algerian Muslims to side with Palestine. The Maoists equated Palestine with Vietnam. At first, it didn’t work, but later it caught on.
For two years Muslims and Jews worked together on racism (SOS Racisme), but then that fell apart. (1984)
Rutgers Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life hosts free lectures like this one in the spring and fall; see Public Events.
I published an interview with marketing director David Rekuc: Blog Interview on Marketing, eCommerce and Edison, NJ. Looking to interview other central New Jersey business people, especially those who make good use of social media, websites and/or blogs.
Note about the photo: I love the combination of dandelions with all the purples of this season. I purposely left a few in my front yard, to complement the grape hyacinths, creeping phlox and purple deadnettle. The periwinkle/dandelion photo is actually in a yard a block from my home.
Bird pattern on door of McNeil Avian Center at Philadelphia Zoo
There is a wonderful educational movie about bird migration at the Philadelphia Zoo. You can see it in the McNeil Avian Center building. It stars a cartoon oriole named Otis. He is a funny yellow bird who starts off in Cape May, New Jersey talking to a heron. She tells him that he really can’t hang around in Cape May; he needs to migrate down to South America.
On the way he meets a lady oriole – she warns him not to fly down into what we know is a big city. Maybe the big city is in Texas. Otis is tempted by all the shiny lights. Bang! He flies right into a shiny, reflective tall building. He also finds out there is little food in this shiny, bright city.
It all ends happily – he makes it down to South America, finds the lady oriole, and at the movie’s end, they are building a nest together back in the north.
At the avian center there is a section of African Savannah birds – this is an African Starling. Doesn’t look like the starlings we see in North America, does it?
Another African Savannah bird: here is an Egyptian plover. An Egyptian plover has a black crown and underparts of pale orange. It was quite warm in this part of the avian center – I suppose all these African Savannah birds would prefer a climate warmer than that of Philadelphia.
The black birds above were not part of any exhibit of birds at Philadelphia Zoo, but they were not afraid of the crowd at the zoo.
If you don’t watch where you are going at the zoo, you might run into a peacock.
Should I count this upside-down bird on the carousel as one of the birds at Philadelphia Zoo?
I learned at the bird migration movie that cardinals, unlike orioles, do not migrate. So if I keep feeding the cardinals in my backyard, maybe they will stick around all summer.
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What do the birds in your area do? Do they hang around all winter or do they migrate? Do you know? How could you find out?
