Have lunch for the week in less than 30 minutes!

I think the people who know me would generally describe me as a healthy eater, and for the most part, I really am.  But I can see how my blog posts to date, most of which have involved bacon and/or copious amounts of butter, might lead you to worry that I’ve taken a plunge down a rabbit hole towards high cholesterol and early death. In fact when my good friend Emily forwarded her dad the recipe I used for my salted-caramel bacon brownies, his response was along the lines of “EMILY!  What have you done to her?  You always described Johanna as liking cous cous and whole wheat bread!”

It is true that the Mid-Westerners that I seem to gravitate toward both in and out of the work place have opened my mind up to a culinary thing or two.  For one, salads do not have to be green or involve vegetables.  Case in point: cookie salad.  It took two people at least ten minutes to explain to me at the office Christmas potluck that not only was the white substance in the large bowl next to the green beans cookie salad, not potato salad as I had so North-Easternishly assumed, but that it indeed belonged with the side dishes, not with the desserts.  And for cookie salad, I am profoundly grateful.  But worry not Mr. Schirmer, your daughter has not been detrimental to my health (in fact I’d argue much to the contrary).

I still like my whole grainy, vegetarian, hippie food and here is your proof: Nomad Salad.   Most of my friends think it’s as weird as the name suggests, and some have come up with alternative names not limited to “Jo’s rabbit food” and “your strange bulgur crap.”  Even my mom, who usually shares my preference for brown rice and whole grain bread, will only eat this once a week.  But I love the stuff.  Like, I adore/crave/can’t get enough of the stuff.   I usually throw a batch together on Sunday night and eat it, very happily, for lunch all week.

Johanna