Parsley Micro Green Salad and Slow-Cooked Tenderloin 6

UPC’s Parsley Micro Green Salad and Slow-Cooked Tenderloin

My wife and I have been using Micro Greens in our salads for quite some time. They’re a delicious way to add some additional flavor to the salad, as well as spicing up the texture and presentation. They look great, sprinkled across the top of some cucumbers and avocado with a bed of arugula or kale (there’s a decent salad recipe right there!), and since they’re loaded with flavor, it’s easy to find more reasons to use them. We’ve really come to enjoy using Micro Greens in nearly any kind of meal.

Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

About 2 weeks ago, as my wife and I were doing our regular morning ritual of me asking “What do you want for lunch?” and her replying “I don’t know, what do you have?” I opened the fridge door to check what oyr options were. I had some left over cooked veggies from dinner, some meat, plenty of mushrooms (we always keep plenty of mushrooms around!), but I had run out of salad greens.
“Uh oh,” I said, looking up at my wife as she was sipping the coffee I jad served her. “We’re out of Salad.” I finished. I don’t mind eating a restaurant salad once in a while. I know that everything they provide is conventional produce, not organic, so it’s definitely not a regular meal choice. But my wife’s job had recently moved, and she wasn’t familiar with the restaurants in her new area yet.
“Well, I need some greens.” She responded, still enjoying her coffee. I looked back into the fridge to see what I could cobble together. There are options. There are always options. The last time we did this, I’d made an entire salad base out of steamed celery and zucchini peels. It turned out great! This time would work out too; the only question for me was what would I make the salad from?

Fortunately, that question was easier to answer than the last time. On our most recent shopping trip, we’d noticed a new brand of Micro Greens being offered in our local Whole Foods. The price was good, they were organic, and the quality seemed to be better than the other brands we’d been buying. What’s more, there were a number of tasty looking varieties that I was excited to try! I had picked up several different choices knowing that we wouldn’t have any trouble finding something to do with them. So as I peered about looking for something vaguely green to use as a salad base, I realized that Micro Greens were just right for a salad!

UPC’s Parsley Micro Green Salad and Slow-Cooked Tenderloin

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Parsley Micro Green Salad and Slow-Cooked Tenderloin

Micro Greens are a great way to spice up a salad, adding extra flavor, color, and sometimes a whole new feel to the same old meal. The Parsley Micro Green Salad is taking advantage of that new feel, and using it for the whole salad!

Author: Urban Paleo Chef

Cuisine: Salad

Recipe type: Entree

Serves: 2

Prep time:  5 mins

Cook time:  45 mins

Total time:  50 mins

Ingredients

• 2 cups Parsley Micro Greens
• 2 sprigs Fresh Mint, chopped
• 1 small Cucumber, chopped
• 1 small Avocado, chopped
• 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 6 Crimini Mushrooms, chopped and roasted
• 2 medium Carrots, chopped and roasted
• 1 lb Grass Fed Beef Tenderloin, slow-cooked
• 1 tablespoon Coconut Oil
• 2 cups Filtered Water
• Favorite Beef Spices (I used Sea Salt, Herbs De Provence)

Instructions

1. In a large pan, add the tenderloin, coconut oil, and about half of your favorite beef spices. Cover the pan and cook on medium heat (about 5 out of 10).
2. As the pan is heating up, cut up the carrots and mushrooms.
3. As soon as the pan is sizzling (about 5 minutes of cook time) add the 2 cups of water to the pan, flip the steaks, re-spice the beef, and add the carrots and mushrooms around the beef in the pan. Re-cover, and continue to cook on medium heat.
4. On to the Salad:
5. Chop the cucumbers and avocados.
6. In a medium mixing bowl, add the Parsley and mint, then add the chopped cucumbers and avocado, finally drizzling the olive oil over the top of that.
7. Mix the salad thoroughly. Take your time on this, micro-greens are fragile, and the salad will taste and present the best if they aren't bent of crumpled too much.
8. Let the steak cook until the water has entirely boiled off. Stir every 10 minutes or so.
9. Once the steak is cooked, add the carrots and mushrooms to the salad and mix again.
10. Serve and enjoy!

Notes

To enjoy this salad as a take-to-work lunch, as I did, put it in your to-go container with some room on the side for the steak. Then pack it and go!
If you have a container with more than one compartment, even better!

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Thoughts On The Salad

Avocado and cucumbers are an old stand-by for any salad. They always seem to work, adding to the character of any overall flavor without stealing the spotlight. It’s always interesting to me to see how they will end up working in any given meal, because their flavors are so fungible that they just seem to mold themselves to the character of the meal. The Parsley Micro Greens are a subtle flavor. They are unmistakably parsley, but (and not to make a pun) they’re an immature version of the flavor. It’s there and quite delicious, but nowhere near as sharp or strong as a mature parsley plant. With the subtle base of the Parsley Micro Greens, the cucumber flavor is really brought to the forefront, right on the tip of the tongue. It tastes like a burst of flavor, spreading out in the mouth as the juices of the cucumber are released. And since cucumbers are mostly water, the flavor burst fades quickly, bringing in the Parsley as the lasting aftertaste.

Add the slow-cooked beef tenderloin, and the meal is about as exciting as a lunch can be without eliciting uncontrollable foodgasms and inviting inappropriate comments from your co-workers!