This post is a collaboration with Williams-Sonoma, but all words and opinions are my own.
When I was growing up we
would sometimes have salad with dinner. It was usually as an
accompaniment to a grilled steak or chicken and during the summer months when it was much too hot, in Tucson, Arizona to be thinking about turning on the oven. My mom would
often put me in charge of tossing the dinner salad together and it always had
the same ingredients; iceberg lettuce, tomato wedges and sliced cucumbers.
Onions were left on the side because my brother would not come withing 10
feet of them and my dad did not care for them on his salad. Break out the
bottled dressing and salad was served. I never really liked salad much
when I was a kid.
When I was in college,
pasta salads became very popular (yes, I know that I am dating myself).
Cooked, cold pasta mixed with chunks of Mozzarella cheese, cubes of
pepperoni and chopped onions, sliced black olives and sometimes some peppers
thrown in for good measure. Pour on some bottled dressing and voila'!
Salad as a meal! Who doesn't love a good pasta salad? I haven't
had one like this in quite a while. Kind of makes me want one, come to
think of it.
All of this reminiscing
is great, a walk down salad memory lane, if you will, but salad can be and is
so much more than just a wedge of iceberg lettuce drowned in blue cheese
dressing and a couple of cherry tomatoes tossed on the plate for show.
Yes salad is whatever you want it to be and I think we sometimes forget
that we can make almost anything into a salad.
Traditionally, salads
are cold but they can be served warm or hot as well. They can be just
greens dressed with a simply vinaigrette made with lemon and olive oil, or they
can be full of everything but greens and lettuce. I personally love a
chopped salad sans lettuce. Sometimes I just think lettuce gets in the
way of all that other earthy goodness. How about throwing some cubed
bread for a Panzanella or Tuscan bread salad? What about using cooked
rice, Quinoa, couscous or Millet as a base for a dinner salad? The
possibilities are endless!
There is really no good
reason not to be eating more salad. I, for one, have promised myself that
I will serve more salads, hot, cold and everything in between to my family this
coming year. It is my hope that we can love this new path and use it as
an opportunity to explore new combinations of ingredients that we can enjoy
together at our supper table. My girls love salad! My oldest, Molly
loves it however she can get it, with lots of greens or with none at all, with
grilled chicken or steak, Caesar or Asian style, you name it, she loves it and
actually craves salad. Not bad for a 15 year old right? My youngest
is a bit more finicky but I'm working on her. Right now she will only
eat salad that is made with fresh baby spinach and hard cooked eggs, she only
eats the tomatoes on the side and she likes it with ranch dressing. Like
I said, I'm working on her! As for myself and my husband, we both love
them as well, but I just don't think about them being a meal as often as I
should.
So off I go to try and make salad a bigger part
of our lives. I hope you will consider this as well. We can make our
lives a bit easier with salad and we can make our bodies a little healthier
with them as well. The good folks at Williams-Sonoma have devised a wonderful chart along with recipes that provide a seemingly endless variety of salad recipes for us to work through. Have a look and see what you like and start eating salad tonight!
Check them out here:
 |
Click Here to See Great Salad Ideas at Williams-Sonoma |
Here are a couple of salad ideas that we love at our house:
Asian Chicken Salad
Ginger Sesame Dressing
Taco Salad with Homemade Chili
I hope you try these and I hope you love them! I also hope you check out the link to Williams-Sonoma and get some great ideas for salad dinners at your house!
Happy Eating!
You can see lots more recipes and ideas on my website
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