Super Salads!

One of the ways I try to get lots of raw veggies into my diet is by eating salads. Most days I have at least one big salad, and some days I even have two of them. Many times people will balk at the idea of eating a big salad, saying that they don't really like salad very much. My friend Sooz is one of these people, but when I tell her all of the wonderful stuff that goes into one of my salads she says, "Oh, yeah. Well, that actually does sound good!"

So, today we have Salad 101.

I used to buy all of my salad greens and wash and chop or tear them one by one, but it really took a lot of time and therefore was easy to not be consistent about! I started looking at the bagged greens that are prewashed and decided to give them a try. Up until the other night I actually felt a little guilty for not buying my spinach in a bunch rather than in a bag, but then I did a little investigating. I took a bunch of spinach and weighed it, made a guess at the amount of weight that I could deduct for the very long stems that I could cut off, and took note of the price. Then I went and looked at the bagged spinach and compared the prices. I discovered that the bagged spinach is actually cheaper than the bunches! YAY! I can have my convenience AND a bargain with my healthy food. I love it when that happens.

Now, before we get very far here let me tell you that iceberg lettuce is NOT lettuce for your salad. Iceberg lettuce is almost completely void of flavor and nutrition. Pass on by it, girls. Pass on by. Lettuces for your healthy and delicious salads should be dark green and dark red. Get some drama going on in your salad bowl! When I have the time I love to get a head of the red leaf lettuce and use that along with the spinach. When I don't have the time for cleaning the lettuce myself I get one bag of organic mixed lettuces and use it along with lots of the spinach. If I'm going for cheap, I just use the spinach which is great all by itself as well.

Like many people, I don't really have time to make a salad every day. What I do instead is make a huge salad that will last us about a week. Here's how it goes:

Start with a large bag of spinach, plus either a bag of prewashed lettuce or one head of leaf lettuce. If you decide to rewash the bagged items, make sure you use a salad spinner or something comparable to get the greens really dry. Keeping your salad dry is the key to having it stay nice for you all week long.

I use a very large bowl to alternate the spinach and lettuce, throwing it into the bowl to mix it up. Then I start adding some fun stuff!

Recently I discovered bags of Broccoli Slaw in my produce department. These bags contain shredded up broccoli, carrots, and red cabbage. Again, it's all prewashed, so all I have to do is throw some in! I do not like chunks of carrot, cabbage, or broccoli in my salads, so this texture works out great. It adds color and flavor plus nutrition. One of these bags is less than $2 and lasts me more than 2 weeks.

You can also get matchstick carrots, cut similarly to the Broccoli Slaw, and add those to your salad if you enjoy more carrots, more color, or can't find the Broccoli Slaw at your store.

Cherry tomatoes are the best tomatoes to add to your salad when you want it to stay nice for a week. Just wash, dry, and throw them in! If you can't get cherry tomatoes you can obviously use any other kind, but if you are going to add any tomato that you are going to cut up, don't add it until you are about to eat.

I love sweet peppers in my salad, and you can always find green ones for cheap at the grocery store. However, if you are like me and want lots of pretty color in your salad, spring for the red or orange sweet peppers instead. I LOVE to see little red and yellow and orange treasures in my salad bowl. It is so pretty and makes me feel even happier about eating a salad. Some of my younger children will even come around to peer into my salad bowl and ask for bits of pepper or little tomatoes. They are learning that salads are interesting and delicious!

You can keep your salad in a covered pot in your fridge if you have the space, or just use gallon size or larger zip lock bags. This salad I am describing usually fills two gallon bags in my fridge. They are always front-and-center so when I am feeling hungry I see it and remember to have a salad first. It looks fresh and pretty in my fridge as well.

When it's time to eat, why not have a salad first, even if you're going to eat other things also? What I try to do a lot of days is to eat a big salad first, and then if I'm still hungry I will eat whatever I made for the rest of the family to eat for that meal. I use a Tupperware bowl that has a 12-cup capacity, because I like to have lots of room to stir my salad around and not have it spill over the sides. I usually start with about half a bowl of the salad I've premade, and then I add even more goodies to it!

You can add chopped tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, nuts and seeds, some chopped up hard boiled eggs or some chopped up chicken or turkey, and a lot of times I break up some of the raw burgers that I make in my dehydrator and add those as well. Guacamole is awesome in my salads, and I LOVE to make a fabulous, easy raw salsa, which is my very favorite salad dressing of all time. I have a section of my fridge that has all the salad goodies handy so all I have to do is start grabbing stuff and tossing it into my bowl.

Just like the breakfast smoothies, salads can be really easy and can be adjusted to whatever your eating goals are. For me, I try to make it filling and beautiful, and if I can have it be all raw I really like that. If you can take 5 or 10 minutes once a week you can have lovely salads available to you all week long. If you don't junk them up with tons of regular salad dressing, it's so healthy and delicious. You can make a positive change for your health rather painlessly.