One of my favourite restaurant salads is Earls Santa Fe salad. Of course, I always have to order it without the chicken (and beg the server to sub me some extra avo in its place!). Today, I have one leftover vegan chick’n breast, so I thought I’d try a fake of the salad!

The dressing is a peanut-lime vinaigrette, but all the online fakes of the dressing contain copious amounts of oil and sugar, which I’m replacing with tofu and dates.

PEANUT LIME VINAIGRETTE

Blend in the Vitamix:

• 1/2 cup fresh peanuts
• 1/2 cup tofu
• 1/2 cup lime juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 TBS peanut butter
• 2 medjool date
• 1 TBS soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 Tbl lime zest

SANTA FE SALAD:

Toss with the above dressing:

• romaine lettuce
• black beans
• corn
• chopped dates

Top the salad with….

• vegan chick’n breast
• avocado
• chopped peanuts (for topping)

Just look at that lusciousness!! And it tastes close enough to the Earls version that I’m happy at finally tasting it with the chick’n!

It’s a glorious day here on Denman, and I’ll likely be spending it working on the deck garden, which is quite the mess at the moment.

And our song of the day is Ray Lamontagne’s “You are the Best Thing” because I’ve been a bit preoccupied and sad of late because of my parents’ health issues and the lyrics seem particularly apt for the way James just makes everything better with no apparent effort….