I am pleased to report success in establishing a daily salad habit. I started once a week in early January and kept adding one day a week. It was super easy to do, in fact lunch has become on of the highlights of my day. This is my first step in a set of goals designed toward a healthier lifestyle in 2013. For more details about why and how I approached it, read the original post.
As part of my routine, cobb salad (photo above) has become a Sunday tradition at our house. It is heartier than most of my salads through the week, but serves as our main meal during an afternoon game of Catan or a movie. Typically it consists of a bed of romaine or leaf lettuce, tossed with a dressing of lemon and red wine vinaigrette, then covered with red and yellow tomatoes, good local bacon fried to a crisp, avocado, grated hard cheese, leek or red onion, smoked chicken and farmers’ market eggs. Those are the usual toppings, but infinite variations are possible with sweet pepper, ham, roast chicken, feta cheese, sprouts or whatever appeals to the imagination.
Here are a few other favourite salads from the past few weeks:
- grated Jerusalem artichoke, pitted and chopped kalamata olives, lemon juice, olive oil and coarsely crushed cumin (from NYTimes)
- warm oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter on a bed of Boston lettuce with a mild lemon vinaigrette
- kale marinated in balsamic vinaigrette for half an hour, tossed with dried cranberries, roasted pine nuts and parmesan cheese (from Simply Recipes)
- corn niblets briefly sauteed in butter, tossed with well toasted coconut flakes and almonds, thyme, sea salt, chopped red onion and a generous squeeze of lime juice (from 101 Cookbooks)
- grated turnip and carrot with lime juice and olive oil (from Seasonal Ontario Food)
- cooked quinoa tossed with chopped, fresh red pepper, roasted sweet potato, lemon juice, olive oil and cayenne pepper (an old favourite from About.com vegetarian food)
- greens with mandarin orange sections, avocado, sliced green onion or leek, roasted almonds and a sesame oil dressing (from Michelle Rafter)
- romaine, smoked rainbow trout, quinoa, sunflower sprouts and sesame seeds with lemon ginger sesame dressing
Switching to salad for lunch is a major dietary improvement. Now I want nothing else. Why not join me? Please share your favourite salad recipe.
