Day 3: Vegetables with Breakfast Challenge and a Giveaway

Some posts during the Veg with Breakfast Challenge will be new recipes to inspire you to try new things for breakfast. But I also want to share what works for me and this sometimes means re-visiting recipes posted previously. One of these is Pressed Salad.

Reminiscent of a dressing-free slaw, pressed salad is refreshing, keeps well for several days, has a satisfying crunch and is very versatile. I have thrown leftovers in collard wraps, nori rolls, fresh garden rolls and stirred into a grain. Most often I use it as a side dish as is or sprinkled with a little lemon or brown rice vinegar.

Some vegetable dishes, like blanched or steamed, are better eaten immediately from both an energetic and nutritional perspective. Pressed salad, on the other hand, can be thought of as the beginning stage of a pickle or sauerkraut, so it doesn’t lose its value as quickly. When you prepare it with green cabbage, carrot and a little green onion, it’s also very economical.

I often prepare this salad for lunch or dinner, making enough for several servings over the course of a few days. Naturally, I include it with breakfast some mornings. I pull it out of the fridge when I first wake up and by the time I am ready to eat it is usually warmed up a bit. The volume reduces dramatically while pressing, so just know that if you eat 1/2 to 3/4 cup, you are getting your 1 cup of vegetable.

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corn cakes with lentils, pressed salad

Instructions for making the pressed salad are here. The corn cake and lentil recipe is here. Just add several spoons of drained, cooked lentils to the recipe.

Some extra tips:

  • It helps to use a sharp knife because the vegetables need to be cut super thin.
  • When massaging the ume vinegar or sea salt into the vegetables, the vegetables should start getting fairly wet as the salt draws the moisture out. If the vegetables are still pretty dry after massaging for a few minutes, add a little more salt or ume vinegar.
  • Make sure the plate you choose to place on top of the vegetables is the right size to cover the vegetables, but not so big that it hits the sides of the bowl as the vegetables press down further into the bowl.

Things you can do the night before:

  • Make this salad! Then you are all set for the morning.

The giveaway:

I am giving away a bottle of very high quality umeboshi vinegar made in Japan using traditional methods. Umeboshi is kind of special because it contains all of the five flavors:  sweet, salty, sour, bitter and pungent (or umami). I think the predominant flavors. It’s not a true vinegar, but the brine from making umeboshi plums, so it’s also alkalyzing. One of the reasons my food tastes so good even with simple ingredients is because I use high quality, traditionally made ingredients. As you might imagine, it makes a huge difference. This is the same umeboshi vinegar I use in the pressed salad and in salads like my quinoa salad. Natural Import Company sells this Mitoku brand umeboshi vinegar. Goldmine sells a comparable one under the Ohsawa brand label.

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To enter the giveaway, simply comment about your favorite way to eat vegetables for breakfast. You need to be a follower of sweetveg or littleveg either through the WordPress reader or through email to participate. Or if you are following some other way, just let me know. You also need to be in the U.S. or Canada. The giveaway ends at midnight Pacific Standard Time on May 5, 2013. I will put each entry into a hat and pick. (I’m a little slow to use computerized raffles) I will announce the winner in a blog post and contact and mail the gift to the winner.

This giveaway is now closed.

If you have just joined us for the Vegetables with Breakfast Challenge you can start with the first post here.

 

 

 

6 Responses

  1. driel00

    Hi Teresa,
    I have a small bottle of ume plumb vinegar by Eden. The ingredients include beafsteak leaf (shiso) and sea salt along with the ume plumb. Is this what you would consider a good quality?

    Thanks for sharing your expertise with us!

    • sweetveg

      That’s a great question. I think the Eden brand umeboshi vinegar is probably the highest quality that is readily available at most natural food stores. Eden is a very conscientious company.
      However, I still choose to buy the Mitoku brand because I love the taste of this umeboshi vinegar in particular and have experience with how their products make me feel. These are healing quality products and can be used in specific ways to support our health.
      What are your favorite vegetables to eat with breakfast?

  2. Hannah Farrell

    My favourite breakfast that uses vegetables is kale and potato hash with a squeeze of lemon, a bit of shaved parmesan and lots of black pepper. I also like vegetarian omelettes with lots of diced vegetables.

    I’ve never tried Umeboshi vinegar but it sounds like something I’d get a lot of use out of 🙂

  3. sweetveg

    Hi Hannah. Your hash sounds delicious! I love a squeeze of lemon on just about anything. I am thinking about posting a fried sweet potato recipe as a breakfast suggestion, but it’s still in the idea stage. 🙂 We’ll see.

    • sweetveg

      I always love seeing the photo in that post, Emmy. I’m going to have to try that recipe.