…in a BIG tossed salad! One of my favorite tricks to ensure our family gets its raw greens and things is a big, colorful, fresh salad filled with an assortment of delicious vegetables. Pretty much every week I stop and pull out every fresh item I have in the fridge that can possibly be added to a salad. (I do, however, leave out any type of raw onion and mushroom to accommodate my sons. I keep those separate because I figure if they’ll eat all the other stuff gladly, why have a war over mushrooms and onions?)
This ready-made salad is one key to good health, plenty of fiber in our diets and convenience. Although initially it costs me about an hour to wash, dry, dice and toss, plus all the clean-up involved, it’s well worth the effort all week long when we simply grab, serve and eat.
Here is the current salad we are enjoying – you can see it’s dwindling, so it will be time to prepare another one soon…
This time it contains romaine, mixed wild greens (purchased in a ready-made combination bag at the store), radishes, carrot, cucumber, fresh basil, shredded red cabbage, red and yellow sweet pepper, celery, cherry tomatoes and turnip. I’ve started slicing all the extra-firm veggies in a food processor to save time and get a much thinner end product. My kids remarked how much they’re enjoying the new texture of the sliced vegetables. Just a twist on the same ol’ veggie.
Branch out and add sugar snap peas, diced broccoli, snow peas and cauliflower, cilantro, and anything else that sounds fun. Today I added crumbled feta cheese, kalamata olives, green onions and freshly ground pepper to my portion. Then I tossed it with balsamic vinegar and flaxseed oil. So delicious I forget it’s healthful, too. Design your own version and dig in!
January 30th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
This is something our family really enjoys as well. My girls LOVE salad. For about six months last year, we ate mostly raw (vege’s, fruit, some whole grains/cooked vegan food) and loved it. Circumstances prevented us from continuing but we loved it while it lasted. Nice to see we’re not the only vege-loving family out there!