Side Dish: Deluxe Green Salad with Pears, Tomatoes, Artichokes and Pesto Dressing

How about a Deluxe Green Salad to serve with your main course?

DELUXE GREEN SALAD WITH PEARS, TOMATOES, ARTICHOKES AND PESTO DRESSING

Ingredients

2 pears, diced

2 tomatoes, diced

1 can of artichoke hearts

Pesto sauce 

Flax seeds

Salad leaves

If you don't have pesto at hand, you can make it using the recipe found at the end of that post.

Directions

It's simple. Mix all the ingredients until the flax seeds and serve it on a bed of salad leaves.

Super Easy Tofu Eggless Salad Sandwich

I used to love egg salad sandwiches! Whenever there was a cold buffet, that was the only sandwiches I would eat. I always had an aversion for tuna or chicken sandwiches, bleh. Now I am also grossed out by eggs.

So this recipe is much better, for the environment, the health, and your taste buds!

The sandwiches are not soggy either so you can put them in a Tupperware and eat them at work for lunch, like I did.

SUPER EASY TOFU EGGLESS SALAD SANDWICH

Ingredients

1 pack of firm tofu
1/3 cup of vegan mayo
2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
1 avocado
Salad leaves
1 tomato, sliced
8 slices of 12 grain bread

Directions

To make the salad: Blot the tofu so that it loses most of its liquid. Put it in a mixing bowl along with the mayo, mustard and salt and pepper. Mash and mix it well until you get a mixture that looks a little like an egg salad. Put aside.

To make the sandwich: Mash the avocado and spread it on one slice of bread. Add two thin slices of tomatoes on top. Spoon the tofu mixture on the tomatoes and top with a little bit of salad. Close the sandwich with another slice of bread. Repeat the process three other times. You will  have a total of four sandwiches.

Chocolate Rocher Bars

When I was a kid, my parents took us (my brother, sister and I) to the North of Quebec.

Back then, my family was really religious, and we were part of a cult. The cult was fairly small. There were I think a total of 5 churches all over Quebec (and it only exists in Quebec). Now, I know at least two of those churches became independent. And in the North, there was only a family. Not sure how they came to know of the existence of our church, but the church members regularly went to visit them during their summer vacation. I don't know if they are still part of the church or not.

Anyway, although I think that cult messed up my mind for a long time, there was at least one good thing I got out of it (because you always have too look at the bright side of things, right?) And I got it from that trip. That lady in the North of Quebec, she made awesome chocolate rocher cookies!

Seeing we liked the cookies so much, my mom asked for the recipe, and we have been making them at home regularly.

I decided to shape them into chocolate bars instead of cookies. They are super easy to make, and delicious. Ah, and I veganized the recipe too, obviously.

CHOCOLATE ROCHER BARS

Ingredients

1/2 cup of almond milk
1/2 cup of vegan margarine
2 cups of vegan sugar
6 table spoons of cacao powder
3/4 cup of peanut butter
1 tea spoon of vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups of oats (not quick cooking oats)

Instead of the peanut butter, you can also use chopped walnuts.


Directions

Mix the first three ingredients in a pot and heat it over medium heat until the margarine is melted. Bring to a boil and stir well until smooth. Lower the heat and add the cacao powder. Remove from the heat and pour in the rest of the ingredients (peanut butter, vanilla, and oats). Pour the mixture in a rectangular Pyrex plate. Flatten the mixture out with a spoon and put in the freezer for at least 2 hours.

It should be kept cold in the fridge after that. If you keep it at room temperature, it will become too gooey and sticky.

Enjoy!