Salad Week

The weather is finally nice around here (almost a bit too nice!), so salads are my natural food of choice. The other day, on my Lunch Salad post, I asked you what your favorite salad was. I got some great comments and used them as inspiration for this week’s menu.

But first up is a salad that I grew myself. There is honestly nothing better than planting, caring for, and then eating your own veggies. It also makes me appreciate my organic CSA more as I had to share quite a bit of my salad with various little critters… Here is what I was left with: 

• Arugula
• Red leaf lettuce
• Tomatoes

And here are the salads for the rest of the week. Thanks everyone for your comments! I will supplement the salads with different sources of protein (Buffalo chicken, egg whites, chickpeas, and salmon).

Salad 1: Kathy’s favorite summer salad: “My favorite summer salad uses fresh tomatoes as the base for the dressing. I dice a couple and put them in the bottom of a big salad bowl before sprinkling them generously with garlic powder and salt and pepper. I let these marinate for at least a half hour and a couple of hours if I have time. Just before serving, I add some pepper strips, cucumber, and thinly sliced sweet onion separated into rings along with some crisp Romaine lettuce. I then pour a little olive oil and red wine vinegar over the top and toss. The tomatoes gather a little pool of garlicy tomato juice in the bottom which mixes with the vinegar and oil to form the tastiest dressing ever! Just a teaspoon of oil is plenty and balsamic vinegar can be subbed for the red wine variety for a little sweeter version.” I discovered Kathy’s blog when I first started blogging more than two years ago, and I love all her recipes. We have often said that we’d love to share a meal. Too bad we don’t live closer!

Salad 2: Lauren: “I love avocado, with jarred tuna and lemon and oil dressing over greens.” That’s one of my recent favorites as well. I love smashing the avocado in with the tuna.

Salad 3: Roz: “Right now, my favorite is beet and orange salad with fresh mint and goat cheese.” Sounds delicious. I’ll experiment!

Salad 4: Marisa: “My favorite lunch for a while was Buffalo Chicken Salad- I was pretty hooked on it for a couple weeks!” Sounds delicious!  

Questions: What’s your favorite food at the moment? Any more salad ideas to share? Have you ever grown your own vegetables and/or herbs? If so, what was your experience? I love growing my own vegetables and herbs. There is truly nothing better than a freshly harvested, homegrown salad. However, I have also had my fair share of “failures.” Or maybe I should say the squirrels, snails, birds and other animals in my neighborhood are often very well fed!  

Be well,
Andrea