Summer salad and sweet onigiri

Here in Western New York, once you get sick of one type of extreme weather, the other extreme comes along. I had just gotten tired of shovelling the driveway and enjoyed about a month of comfortable spring weather, when we were hit with blistering heat and humidity. I know for those of you in the South, my whining about an 80 degree day must sound pathetic, but I am just not designed for this.


So, I made a nice cool summer lunch.




A really simple salad to make. I used one english cucumber, two large, firm tomatoes, and one avacado, all diced and mixed together. Then I added a splash of olive oil (just enough to coat), about a 1/4c of fresh lemon juice, a few good pinches of dried dill, salt and pepper. mixed it all together and let it sit in the fridge for an hour to marinate. It's fine to eat right away, but if you can wait for it to chill, it's much better. I added a spoonful of Tofutti sour cream to my bowl when I was done. As a side dish, this serves a lot. for a lunch, it should serve three or four hungry people, depending on the size of your produce.


As a kid, I always loved rice pudding, but it was so involved to make. I have developed a faster vegan version, but it still involves sitting over a hot stove. I invented a summer version yesterday:



The night before, I had steamed a batch of sweet black sticky rice (available at your local Asian grocer), and stuck it in the fridge. It's true that this rice has a sweeter flavour than its white counterpart, but it also has the texture of a wild rice. slightly chewy.

I mixed the rice (which was about three cups cooked) with a few teaspoons of sugar and about 1/8c of coconut milk. I pressed the rice into my onigiri molds just for presentation value, but you could do just about anything with them. After you add the coconut milk, the rice is not as sticky anymore, making this a dish you need to eat with a fork, as opposed to a finger food like traditional onigiri.

I made the sauce by mixing a few tablespoons of cashew butter with some more coconut milk and whisking until I got the consistency I wanted. I topped it with some brown sesame seeds, again just for presentation. They didn't make much difference in the flavour of the dish, especially with the strength of the cashew butter.