Easy to Make, Healthy Salad, Mostly From Cans

Yes, I call this salad "Easy to Make, Healthy Salad, Mostly From Cans." And it's not an oxymoron.

It can also be titled Corn, Bean and Tomato Salad, Corona Lock-down Recipe #4, because the canned food was delivered to us as part of the senior citizen care package at the height of the corona lock-down. Following are the first three recipes I developed with canned food from the carton:

• Cooking With Canned Beans, Corona Lock-down Recipe #1
• Cooking With Canned Pineapple, "Apple-Pineapple Compote," Corona Lock-down Recipe #2
• "Sauerkraut Salad," Corona Lock-down Recipe #3

If you had inspected my pantry before getting these COVID-19 "care packages," you'd have found almost no cans, not even tomato paste. The few cans would have been "food gifts" from the Purim mishloach manot. But suddenly I found myself with all sorts of canned food and decided to make up recipes.

This salad is also a great vegetarian-vegan "one pot meal." It contains protein plus raw and cooked vegetables. Of course you can substitute different types of beans and vegetables and add more fresh salad. Just looking at it you can probably guess almost all of the ingredients:

canned corn
canned white beans
diced tomato
diced onion
coarsely ground pepper
dehydrated dill
dressed with a bit of olive oil and lemon juice

Yes, that's it. Think of the recipe more as inspiration than an exact recipe. Try it, and tell me how yours turned out and how you varied it. Enjoy in good health.

"Sauerkraut Salad," Corona Lock-down Recipe #3

This is the third in the series of recipes I've been making with the goodies we've received in "care cartons" for senior citizens here in Shiloh during the Corona Lock-down. See, sample and share:

Cooking With Canned Beans, Corona Lock-down Recipe #1
Cooking With Canned Pineapple, "Apple-Pineapple Compote," Corona Lock-down Recipe #2

When I was putting away the cans, my head/mind kept trying to figure out what to do with them. Waste was not an option. Normally there's almost no canned food in my pantry, other than cans we received on Purim from others. But I believe that I must use these gifts, so I've been trying to figure out recipes.

Sauerkraut? Gevalt! That was never on our menu. Apparently sauerkraut is very healthy. Since simplicity is one of the hallmarks of my cooking or food preparation, I decided to add some to a salad. After half a century here in Israel, salad means minimally cucumbers and tomatoes. So I added  a few spoonfuls of sauerkraut. Yes, it's that simple.

Sauerkraut Salad

Yes, easy to prepare, healthy and surprisingly tasty, too.

Cooking With Canned Pineapple, "Apple-Pineapple Compote," Corona Lock-down Recipe #2

This is the second in the series of recipes I've been making with the goodies we've received in "care cartons" for senior citizens here in Shiloh during the Corona Lock-down. See, sample and share:

Cooking With Canned Beans, Corona Lock-down Recipe #1



Corona Lock-down Recipe #2:

The box of goodies/staples sic, we received as senior citizens included a few cans of lightly sweetened pineapple. I decided that with the addition of a few apples and a teaspoon of cinnamon, we'd have Apple-Pineapple Compote.

Yes, that's the recipe plus a bit more water than was in the can. I cooked it all up until the apples were soft, and we ate it for dessert on Shabbat.  There's still some leftover. My husband, who's not much of a fruit eater even liked the compote.

The Apple-Pineapple Compote was very easy to make. The most difficult part of the preparation was opening the can. Thank Gd I have an old simple can-opener.

Corona Lock-down Recipe
Apple-Pineapple Compote