Here it is the beginning of January and it’s time for healthy salads! Put down the eggnog. Pick up the kale and those snowshoes! I love to take this easy salad with me in my backpack to enjoy on a mountaintop after a morning of snowshoeing. This is one of those great healthy vegetarian salads that keeps in the fridge for about four or five days.
I based this salad on one of my favorite healthy salads from a family-owned restaurant I used to love until they pissed me off during the holidays.
So, I have not been to Laguna Beach in probably two years. This bougie tourist trap is two and a half hours from me without traffic. However, there is always traffic in Los Angeles and Orange County. When I visited Active Culture in Laguna Beach in early December I splurged and traded my soul to take the tollroad and also ignore a fifty-minute traffic delay. Yes, a fifty-minute traffic delay to travel sixty miles! Welcome to Southern California!
So I got up before dawn for a fun-filled day (My kind of fun!) of thrift store Christmas shopping, driving to Artesia (Little India) to buy ethnic foods, going to multiple good restaurants and even meeting up with a friend and her new baby at our favorite thrift store. Do you see a trend in my fun here? Thrift stores and good, healthy yum yums.
They used to have culture anyway…
Active Culture in Laguna Beach has always been my go-to place for healthy salads. Their Fair Winds Quinoa Bowl is heaven in a salad in my opinion. But unfortunately, the snippy attitude of the employees who work there really turned me off the whole experience. I’ve been supporting this small business for at least fifteen years and I don’t think I will be back again.
So like I said, I have not driven to Laguna Beach in two years. I’m not surprised as I searched for parking at 8:50 a.m. that all the parking is metered these days. But Active Culture does have a small lot in back of their store so I figured I would just park there. I would get my bowl to go and continue on my day. Drive straight to nearby Whole Foods after that to stock up on Flame Beets, pickled anchovies and lions mane mushrooms; Healthy ingredients this mondful eater has to drive many hours from my rural home to purchase.
Yes, I pulled up ten minutes before A
ctive Culture with their healthy salads opens, good timing I thought. Their door was unlocked so I wandered in. However, that’s when they told me I could not park in their lot because they were expecting a delivery and I had to go pay for street parking. Then they charged me twenty-five dollars for my eight-ounce salad! Keep in mind this is a vegetarian salad; no meat, no cheese. What are the veggies wrapped in, gold? I realize restaurants are more expensive than they used to be these days and Laguna Beach is just so high-faluting but this was just bad customer service in my opinion. Why would you not schedule your delivery truck to arrive before you open? Besides the fact, I had such a busy day of Christmas shopping. I then had to move my car further away and then walk back and order my food.
Also, they gave me a paper straw with my water. Any restaurant that hands me a paper straw that is going to melt into my water cup in two minutes does not deserve a five-star review or my business. If you don’t live in California you probably don’t get how terrible paper straws are. I’m pretty sure it was Kamala’s idea.
And that right there (Before the paper straw incident) is when I decided I would just make my own fancy chopped detox salad at home. I do want to note that three thrift stores and a stop at Whole Foods later I stopped at Bonchon for a quick Korean Fried Chicken lunch. Bonchon is a Korean Fried Chicken chain here in southern California. I had never been there before but had been craving good Korean Fried Chicken, seriously for years after my favorite food truck went out of business during the pandemic. I went to their location in Artesia and paid under nine dollars for a lunch and that included adding on coleslaw and pickled radishes. And they had parking! And they didn’t give me a paper straw with my water!
Here in California, everyone is obsessed with Chickfilla or Cane’s for chicken-ness and seriously, those places have nothing on Bonchon. I will be back for sure!
Kale, Cucumber Date Help-Me-Lord-Detox Salad
The whole gist of this salad is to chop the veggies super small!
1 bag shredded kale, diced up more into small pieces
6 Persian cucumbers, chopped small
8 dates, chopped small
1 small shallot, chopped small
1/2 of a red bell pepper, chopped small
1 good handful of fresh mint, chopped well
Crumbled Goat Cheese and pickled red onions to dress, if you like that kind of thing.
Coconut Curried Dressing
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup cashews
1/2 cup toasted almonds
1 garlic clove
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
1/8 cup apple cider vinegar
3 teaspoons of water
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
Combine all of these dressing ingredients in your Nutri-bullet.
Cut up your salad veggies very small and toss with the Curried Coconut Dressing. Garnish with goat cheese , the buts and pickled red onions.
