Hope you had a nice weekend.

After a good weekend like the one I had, and even though I'm on vacation, I have to prepare myself for Monday and everything that comes with it. For that reason and more, I try to eat a light dinner early; this way, I sleep better and wake up full of energy. This time, I made a salad with cold and warm, raw and semi-cooked ingredients: arugula and green bean salad with avocado, celery, zucchini, and crispy garlic.

I think combining textures in your plate is nice, and that combining them at different temperatures is a lot nicer. What do you think?

INGREDIENTS

For 2 people:

• 150 gr green beans
• 150 gr zucchini
• 150 gr avocado
• 1 cup arugula
• 1 cup celery
• 4-6 garlic cloves (I used porcelain)
• olive oil to sautee
• coconut oil to fry the sliced garlic
• salt to taste
• some lemon juice drops for a wicked twist 😝 and to prevent the avocado from browning

• I used leftover hummus as a dressing for the arugula. Using leftovers is one of my Sunday things.

THE PROCESS

After washing them well and removing the damaged ends, I chopped the green beans. I like the beveled cut.

While the green beans were sauteeing, I chopped the celery I had washed.

The chopped celery went into the hot wok immediately. I added salt and stirred.

As the green beans and celery cooked, I chopped the zucchini, and after a minute, I took the green beans and celery out of the wok...

...And continued to sautee the zucchini. I have to do it this way because there's no room for cooking all the veggies at once. As soon as the zucchini began to turn tender, I took it out of the wok, too.

I used the hot wok to add a dash of coconut oil to sauté the sliced garlic. Then I transferred it to the electric oven tray and let it toast slowly, using the air fryer function. It took a couple of minutes at 100°F.

When the garlic was done, it was time to serve our food. I took all the cooked veggies back into the wok to restore their warmth.

I served two bowls of salad. One for me and one for my landlady whom I'm trying to show how she can eat healthy in new ways, more fun and flavorful ways. She got in really bad shape after the last time she got COVID-19 (again), and so her doctors took lots of foods out of her diet. I take great pleasure in sharing my meals with her whenever I cook something she can eat, and she loves it.

As I was plating the food, I remembered that I had some hummus in the fridge, so I used it as a dressing for the bed of arugula on which I placed the cooked vegetables, avocado, and garlic. That mix of arugula and hummus tastes a lot like Caesar salad; I took notes 😋

As ususal, I hope you found this post useful 😁❤️

Bon appetit!