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How Do You Get Dressed?

Mar 1, 2012

After you slip on your unmentionables, do you first pull on your pants or put on your shirt? Do you immediately clad your toes in socks, or do you pad around barefoot until you find your shoes? And for that matter, do you wear shoes in the house, or only lace up just before you head out? Does it really matter what order you get dressed, as long as you are respectably clothed when you finish?

I always thought that in order for the flavors of a homemade salad dressing to meld, the oil needed to be whisked with the other ingredients (and made in advance of prepping the vegetables). I was also told that to avoid wilting, greens should never, ever be dressed until just before serving. However, a newly discovered salad recipe changes all those rules.

Healthy Salad coats the salad fixings with mild red wine vinegar and chills for a bit before being lightly tossed with just a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. It is crisp, and fresh, and distinctively mouthwatering. Ingredients can vary with what you have on hand, but I do recommend balancing the tartness of the vinegar with something earthy, like mushrooms or avocado slices, to make a more pleasing blend.

I guess it doesn’t matter how you dress a salad, as long as it tastes this good.


Healthy Salad
adapted from Cooking Light

1 large head romaine lettuce, chopped
1 large cucumber, thinly sliced
1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced
4-5 radishes, thinly sliced
4-5 mushrooms (buttons or cremini), sliced (or 1 avocado, sliced)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
freshly ground black pepper
kosher salt

Combine lettuce, cucumber, onion, radishes, and mushrooms in a large bowl. Pour red wine vinegar over everything and toss lightly. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Gradually add oil and season with salt and pepper before tossing again, lightly. Makes 6 servings.

 

Fran Hill has been blogging about food at On My Plate since October of 2006. She, her husband and two dogs reside near Colome.

Comments

07:22 am - Thu, March 1 2012
Rebecca said:
Sounds delicious! I love vinegar on a salad.
07:36 am - Sat, March 3 2012
Last year Norm Ever's of Norm's Greenhouse in Aurora came up with a super idea to enjoy lettuce salad from early spring til late late fall.... Simply take a container...about like an old fashioned wash basin...make sure some drain holes are in it....fill it with dirt and plant leaf lettuce...what ever kinds you like...keep it watered and a little fertilizer....and you can have a lettuce salad every day. Move it to the shade on hot summer days and keep it cool and it just grows and grows and grows....Our favorite way to enjoy it was an old fashioned German Dressing....1/3 cream....1/3 sugar...1/3 vinegar...(You can adjust the vinegar to your own taste preference) Just whip it together with a whisk and put it on the salad.
It's SO simple to do...and really delicious and very healthy for you too. We'll have 3 containers planted this spring with 3 different varieties...(and you can mix the varieties of lettuce in the same pot. Delicious...Healthy...and SO Easy take care of. And...naturally very little space is required. Some of the "old timers" called these Kitchen Gardens...because you could keep them right by the kitchen door instead of in the "big" garden.
10:40 am - Sun, March 4 2012
Laura said:
Grant, I'll be trying the tub o'lettuce method out this spring. The salad dressing sounds good, but have you tried goose grease vinaigrette?

Recipe from Fine Cooking:
http://www.finecooking.com/item/12365/how-to-cook-with-duck-and-goose-fat

"Warm 3 Tbs. goose or duck fat and gradually whisk it into 1 Tbs. red wine vinegar and 1/4 tsp. Dijon mustard. Add chopped shallots and tarragon. Toss with spinach or frisée."
11:12 am - Sun, March 4 2012
Hi Laura...

No I have not tried the dressing....but, we are having Schiltz Foods (The Goose people from Sisseton ) at our Brookings Hy-Vee April 13th...Sampling various goose products and actually cooking and baking with goose grease. We shall try this recipe that day. You can find out more about their products, including the goose grease and pate at www.roastgoose.com
Roast Goose and goose products are kinda becoming the "in thing" in fine cooking....
Once you have one of those "lettuce bowls" Laura, you'll never be without them again.
You can just "snip" off the leaves for salads, sandwiches and more and they just keep coming back and back and back. And SO easy to do and so very little space. I would bet that once you try one, you'll be like us and have 3 or 4 of them with different varieties of leaf lettuce. You might also go to www.grantsgas.com and under the recipe icon, check out Plain Jane Green's peffernut cookies....made with goose grease. It's a old German Treat that was used often at Christmas....the best way to enjoy them (because they are VERY hard) is to pop them in a cup of coffee and then fish them out with a spoon.
11:28 am - Sun, March 4 2012
*Just Fran* said:
Grant, I tried a salad bowl last year, and had enjoyed it. I need to remember to do one again this spring.

Laura, I have made a similar dressing using bacon fat instead of goose. Delicious.

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