Crispy Vegetable Salad

Here is a delicious crunchy salad recipe to keep you eating healthy in the midst of all the holiday indulgences. This is not so much a recipe as a spring board. Try any of your favorite  vegetables  in this. If you don't like pickled vegetables feel free to skip them. Just try this and ...eat your vegetables!!

Crispy Vegetable Salad

Choose 4 or more of these vegetables. Enough for about 5 cups of salad.

4 carrots, sliced very thin diagonally
1 cup green beans or wax beans, trimmed, cut into 1 inch pieces

2/3-1 cup sugar snap peas, cut into 1 inch pieces
2/3- 1 cup cauliflower florets, small

2/3 - 1 cup jicama, julienned or diced
½ - 1 red bell pepper, julienned or diced

2/3 cup sliced celery

2/3 cup cucumber, de-seeded, sliced or chopped

For pickled veggies:

1/3 cup of mild vinegar like golden balsamic or red wine vinegar
1 TBSP lime juice, optional
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp. salt

Add one or two of the following:

½ onion, sliced in  thin vertical slices or diced

8-10 radishes, trim and slice thin

Thinly sliced daikon

Optional: Olive oil, salt, lime juice, sugar, parsley, mint, to taste

Boil carrots for 4 minutes. Add green beans, or cauliflower and boil for 3 more minutes. Add pea pods for 30 seconds.

Place pepper, cucumber, jicama, in a bowl of well salted ice water. Add the parboiled veggies and extra ice as needed.

Heat vinegar, sugar, salt in saucepan until sugar is dissolved. Add radishes and onion. Turn off heat and let this sit for 1 hour. Drain but reserve pickling liquid.

Mix all veggies, mix some of the pickling liquid and a bit of olive oil and use this to dress salad.

You could also  make a dressing from 2 TBSP pickling liquid, 1 TBSP lime juice ,2 tsp sugar, ½ tsp salt or 1 tsp soy sauce, 2 TBSP sesame seeds, 3-4  TBSP olive oi

Let everything meld together in refrigerator for 30 minutes or more. This salad will be good the next day although picked radishes may turn it a bit pink.