Rainbow Salad with Tempeh

Being a 'flexitarian', here's a delicious ‪vegan dish I made in bulk on Sunday afternoon. I'm big on protein, and that is one aspect of the paleo diet that I gravitate to, however ‪tempeh is probably the best vegan protein out there (when it comes to protein, the fact that it's fermented AND contains B12 which most other vegan protein sources don't contain). This is such a simple dish - basically create a rainbow salad by using any leftover veggies in the fridge -try to get all the colors in there. I even threw in some fermented cabbage, wakame flakes, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds to really fuel it up! Then a simple dressing of apple cider vinegar, olive oil, herbamare, garlic and honey. Let it sit for a while for the veggies to soak up the dressing. Meanwhile I gently sauteed the tempeh in a hot pan (after marinating in tamari, anise, garlic powder, olive oil and honey for 1 hr.) until golden. The kids will get the salad in jars for lunch (but they don't like the strong taste of tempeh)!

Chop any variety of veggies (make it colorful) – purple cabbage, red peppers, shredded carrot, broccoli, cucumber, cauliflower, celery. Add the following dressing and let it sit – you can keep this salad dressed for several days!

Dressing:

• 1 Tbsp Sesame Oil
• 2-3 Tbsp Apple Cider vinegar
• 1/2 tsp Herbamare or Sea Salt
• Optional: 1 tsp Dijon mustard or honey

Tempeh:

• Cut your tempeh into cubes and put into a Ziploc with the following marinade:
• 1 tsp anise seed ground (optional)
• 3 TBSP tamari
• 1 TBSP honey
• 2 TBSP Olive oil
• 2 TBSP Water
• 2 TBSP pumpkin seeds
• 2 TBSP sesame seeds

After marinating for 1 hr (or up to overnight) throw the entire contents into a hot pan and brown on all side (takes a few minutes each side). To serve, use 2 cups of your rainbow salad and top with ½ cup Tempeh.