Food Friday: My Favorite Salad

I never ate a salad until I was 22 years old. Until that time, I referred to salad and most anything related to it (i.e. green vegetables, or vegetables of any breed for that matter) as "rabbit food." I have talked to you about this before, but I neglected to mention that I inherited this disdain for healthy food from my dad. To this day, he will not even try broccoli (unless it's mashed up, cooked for a few hours and added to a cheesy soup of some sort... and even then it's a stretch).

One of the first solid foods I ever ate was a Pinwheel. For those of you who don't know, it's a ring-shaped chocolate cookie with marshmallow on top, all covered with a thin chocolate coating. This guy has a good picture in case you care. Apparently my dad snuck me a pinwheel when my mom wasn't looking, and next thing she knew I had scarfed the whole thing. This was a serious error on my dad's part, and shaped very poor eating habits for me at too young an age. My dad still brags about this incident, and my mom is still flaming pissed.

But, I digress. The first place I was ever brave enough to eat a salad was at Olive Garden. My best friend absolutely loved their salads, and finally convinced me to try it. And, it was tasty.... but really all about the dressing. So then, for a long time the only salad I would eat was from OG. But then I learned that you could actually buy bottles of their salad dressing, so I started buying it and making salads at home (with, of course, the exact same ingredients they use at the restaurant, lest I mess up the good thing I had going at that point.) Well, I say exactly the same ingredients, when what I mean is minus the olives and pepperoncini peppers. I still can't eat olives. I'll get into that another time.

So when Justyn and I started dating, he was a vegetarian fresh from San Francisco and I think he suspected there was something seriously wrong with me. You see, part of my salad issue was due to the flavor which I had not acquired a taste for during my first 20 years of life. The other part of the issue was size which I have also mentioned before. I have sort of a complex about bite-sized food, and as you know, most salads out there are not well-chopped. This, of course, leads to big leaves of lettuce flopping about all over your face until your entire chin is covered with balsamic vinaigrette. I don't know what my issue is, but I simply cannot tolerate this. Thus, the salads I make at home require quite a bit of time at the cutting board so I can scoop up the goods easily and efficiently with my fork with no stragglers trying to wave goodbye on their way inside my mouth.

As I got more comfortable with my homemade salads and started actually enjoying them, I decided it was time to experiment. I tried different ingredients and different dressings (of which there are many I currently enjoy - except creamy dressings which I still can't handle). I've come a long way since I started eating salads, and since I now have my very own lettuce to enjoy, I thought I'd share my favorite salad recipe with you. It's not really a recipe, I guess, because there are no amounts. Everyone likes their lettuce/dressing/accessories ratio a little different, so I'll leave it up to you if you like a gallon of dressing or just a splash.

I won't go into the nutritional benefits of eating salad, because you're not idiots. Everyone knows salad is good for you (unless you load it up with ham, bacon, boiled eggs, chow mein noodles, cheese, and ranch dressing). Even if you prefer a heavy, non-healthy salad, I urge you to give this a try. It's perfect for summer, a fabulous, light introduction to virtually any meal. I have a salad nearly every day now, and if I skip a day, I end up a cranky monkey, indeed. Okay, get ready to chop! You know I like my stuff chopped.

Stephanie's Favorite Salad

Crispy lettuce fresh from the garden (usually a mixture of red leaf, green leaf and baby spinach)
Fresh cucumber, sliced and quartered
Tomatoes, also sliced and quartered, or if using smaller varieties (like cherry tomatoes) halved
Walnut pieces (I actually prefer sugared nuts, but I haven't been brave enough to make those at home so just plain ol' roasted nuts are fine with me. Pecans work well, too, for this salad.)
Fresh blueberries
Dried tart cherries (Trader Joe's has an excellent choice) or dried cranberries are good, too
Feta cheese crumbles (if I'm feeling brave - I don't usually like cheese on my salad unless it's parmesan)
Your favorite vinaigrette dressing (I prefer Newman's Own Italian)

Chop, toss, and you're good to go. Mmmm!