Salad!!! by Em

What's that you say?  Salad doesn't deserve one exclamation point, let alone three?  Oh ye of little faith.

I have always liked vegetables, including salad, but the turning point for me came one time when I visited my dad's cousin, W.  They had made a salad for dinner that had everything on it!  It had the traditional lettuce, tomatoes, carrots.  It had the "second string" salad items -- broccoli, cauliflower, onions, cucumbers, and cheese.  It also had peas, green beans, kidney beans, chick peas, grapes, and pasta salad.  There may have been more, I'm not sure.  Too many people think of salad as a side dish, but it can easily become a healthy, filling, refreshing alternative to your usual entrées.

The most common green leafy vegetable [GLV] found in restaurant salads and bagged salads is iceberg lettuce.  However, the best option is to either use a different GLV or use a mixture of different kinds of GLVs, because iceberg has the lowest nutrient value of any GLV, the most nutritious being spinach.

It's better to buy a head of lettuce than bagged salad.  The closer any vegetable is to being straight from the ground, the more nutrients they have.  All I can say about chopping vegetables is, the more you do it, the better/quicker you get.  I don't even like knives and I've gotten pretty good, but another way to cut time is to use a food processor to slice things like carrots, cucumbers, and onions, then chop the GLV and other items like tomatoes by hand.

The average, no frills salad generally does not contain much protein, so if you're making it your main course, it's important to include a good source of protein, such as meat or legumes.  There are a variety of foods that can "beef" up your salad.  Here's a link to a website that lists some of the top protein providers.

Ingredients for Em's "Kitchen Sink" Salad:

Please don't limit yourself on my account, feel free to add or remove ingredients as suits you.

• Green, leafy vegetables.  My favorite is Romaine lettuce, but I tend to mix in some spinach for its nutritional value.
• tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, onions, broccoli, cauliflower
• four bean salad, pasta salad, peas, sugar snap peas
• dried sweetened cranberries, grapes, apple slices, crushed walnuts
• feta cheese -- I like to include feta any time I use the cranberries or apples, but sometimes I use shredded cheddar instead.
• hard boiled egg either chopped or crumbled
• croutons
• salad dressing of your choice

Variations:

• Add cubed ham or chicken pieces.  Chicken is especially good with the apple, cranberry, feta combo.
• Make a Tex-Mex salad.  Leave out the cranberries, grapes, apples, walnuts, croutons, four bean and pasta salads, and egg (or anything else that doesn't go with salsa).  Instead of feta, use the shredded cheddar cheese with kidney beans (especially for vegetarian protein), and for you omnivores either chicken pieces or beef strips.  Mix equal parts sour cream and salsa for a great salad dressing (or my mom uses Italian dressing) and instead of croutons, use either Fritos or tortilla chips.  Try with hot peppers if you're feeling daring!

Time saver:

If I'm really in a hurry, I buy a bag salad and a head of Romaine, then going to the grocery store's salad bar and get all my toppings there, pre-chopped!

Money savers:

• Chop all your own vegetables.
• Make your own three/four bean salad.
• Make your own salad dressings.  My salsa-sour cream dressing is super easy, but there are loads of salad dressing recipes online.