Salad Recipes

In a large bowl, whisk together:

1/2 cup olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
(you can also use 3/4 c. bottled Italian dressing instead of the first two ingredients)
1/2 tsp. diced garlic
1/2 tsp. sea salt

Then add:

1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained
1 can diced Italian tomatoes
1 can green beans, drained
1 can quartered artichoke hearts, chopped

Mix together and chill for several hours to let flavors combine. This salad keeps for 4 days in the fridge.

Ingredients:

2 pounds red potatoes
1 Tablespoon roasted garlic
2 1/2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1 1/2 cups olive oil
1 Tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
Sea salt and black pepper
2 medium red onions, sliced thin
1/3 cup fresh chopped herbs (parsley, tarragon, and thyme)
2 bunches watercress

Instructions:

To roast garlic rub one garlic head with olive oil and bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

To prepare the dressing, whisk together garlic, Dijon mustard and vinegar. Next whisk olive oil into mixture slowly. Season mixture with salt and pepper, mix and add mustard seeds. After cleaning potatoes dice into bite sized pieces and boil until tender.

While potatoes are still warm, add potatoes to dressing and toss. Chill for minimum of 2 hours. When ready to serve add onions, herbs and watercress to potatoes and dressing.

In today's world of fast foods, processed foods, and convenience foods it is hard for some moms to make sure that everyone in the family is getting enough vegetables in their diet. Vegetables seem to be the toughest sell at the dinner hour as parents and children alike may have aversions to some varieties. Finding a happy medium can be hard.

One solution that usually seems to work is the delicious and versatile salad. It can be a potpourri of many tastes and textures that everyone will like but salads can quickly get boring if you keep serving up the same thing all the time.

That is why I love a new e-book called The 365 Salad Recipe Collection. It takes an old favorite and gives you 365 ways to transform it into a masterpiece. That is a new salad for every day of the year! Or rather it is 365 ways to alleviate salad boredom. It has vegetable salads, fruit salads, pasta salads, bean salads, and even breakfast salads.

It also exposes you to some ingredients and flavors you may never have tried before making it an adventure as well as a good eat.

The opening chapter has some good tips on picking the highest quality ingredients to turn out the best tasting and healthiest salads. Then you have hundreds of delicious salad recipes like Confetti Chicken Salad and Fluffy Fruit Salad. This book is a must have for families that want to eat healthy and delicious!

Ingredients:

2 tsp. granted yellow onion
1 tsp. sea salt
½ tsp. freshly ground pepper
2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
½ C. extra virgin oil
½ tsp. freshly ground lemon juice
10 oz. spinach or greens of choice
6 slices nitrite free natural bacon, cut crosswise into ½ inch strips
6 to 8 button mushrooms, sliced
½ red onion, thinly sliced
3 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped

Directions:

Combine the yellow onion, salt, pepper, mustard, and vinegar in a food processor or blender. Process the items for 1 to 2 minutes until smooth. With the motor running slowly, add the oil to create an emulsion. Pour the dressing in a small bowl and stir in the lemon juice. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. Cover with plastic wrap set aside. To prepare the salad immerse the spinach in a large amount of water, swish the leaves to rinse well, and drain. Repeat until no grit or dirt is visible in bottom of the sink. Pick off any large parts or stems and tear into bite size pieces. Dry in a lettuce spinner and transfer to a large salad bowl. Place in refrigerator and cover with paper towel until time to serve.

20 minutes before serving in a small sauce pan over medium heat, sauté the bacon for 5 to 6 minutes, until crisp. Remove the spinach from the refrigerator, add the mushrooms, onions, and eggs to bowl, and toss again. Remove the bacon, drain the grease and add to the salad, toss well. Serve immediately.

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh sweet cherries, pitted
1 cup sugar snap peas
1 cucumber, seeded and sliced
1 cup radishes, sliced
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Balsamic vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon sesame seeds, toasted
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Instructions:

Fill a medium saucepan with water. Place over high heat and bring to a rapid boil. Add the sugar snap peas and blanch 1 minute. Remove from heat and rinse with cold water to cool. Drain well.

Place the drained sugar snap peas in a large mixing bowl. Add the cherries, cucumbers and radishes and toss to combine. In a separate bowl pour both vinegars together. Add the sesame oil. Stir slightly to combine. Stir in the sesame seeds. Sprinkle in the pepper and stir well. Pour over the top of the vegetables and cherries.

Cover tightly and refrigerate 1 to 2 hours. Stir to combine the flavors before serving.

Description: This cookbook gives you 365 salad recipes that will help you incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into your every day life.
Review: That's right 365 salad recipes. Hard to believe huh? I thought so until I checked it out. How could anyone come up with 365 different salads? My thought was if you want fresh fruits and vegetables you can only make so many different salads and 365 wasn't even close to the number I was thinking. Boy was I way off.

One thing I found to be common in almost all the diet books and healthy eating books I have read are that fresh fruits and vegetables are good for you. No matter how you fix them, no matter how much of them you eat or whether you dice them, slice them or eat them whole they are good for you. The other thing I have found is that most of these books don't really give you a lot of options in how to get your family to eat these types of foods. For me that was a very hard battle that I was losing on a daily basis.

I realized that my family did like salads so I thought I could use salads to get them to eat their fruits and vegetables. It worked for about a week. I kept serving the same types of salads day in and day out and they became sick of eating the same thing. So my idea just went out the window. When I found this cookbook that all changed.

I now make salads for just about every meal. In this cookbook I found salads for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Salads made with seafood, creamy vegetable salads and fruit salads. My family is in seventh heaven and they don't even realize how good it is for them.

With 365 different salads I'm sure to find something new every time. Of course there are a few we don't care for, but for the most part we have enjoyed these salads. I even look forward to making a new one and seeing how my family reacts to it. It's fun to see the look on their face when I put something new on the table. It's even more fun to know I'm giving them healthy foods and they like it.

If you want to make a fresh start and eat healthier but are afraid to try because your family may bulk at the idea, try this cookbook. You'll see as I did that eating healthy can be easy and even a fun thing to do.

Ingredients:

1(15 oz.) can black beans
1 green bell pepper, chopped
½ C. celery, chopped
½ C. onion, chopped
2 Tbsp. cilantro, chopped
2/3 C. salsa
¼ C. lime juice
1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
2 Tbsp. honey
1 lb. peeled cooked shrimp
Lettuce

Directions:

Combine the black beans, green pepper, celery, onion, and cilantro in a large bowl and mix well. Add the salsa, limejuice, oil, and honey. Toss to coat well. Chill covered for 8 hours. Stir in shrimp. Serve on a bed of lettuce.