My goal these days is to eat as much salad as possible. That’s mostly because our backyard garden is
bursting with lettuce, kale, spinach, and more!
It’s also because I want to stock up on the leafy goodness before the
weather gets too hot and they start turning bitter. Ultimately though it’s mainly because I love
salads and never seem to get sick of the endless possibilities and
combinations!
Rather than dump store-bought salad dressings on these
wonderful local greens, I find it better to create a spontaneous salad dressing
for each unique salad. The easiest way
to make a salad dressing is to start with oil and vinegar (both of which can be
local too!). Then I follow with some
garlic or herbs, a bit of mustard, honey, sometimes a bit of mayonnaise or
yogurt to help make it more creamy, and finally some salt and pepper. Here’s what a typical dressing recipe looks
like:
·
¼ local oil (sunflower, soy, canola, etc.)
·
2-3 tbsp. apple cider vinegar (preferably raw)
·
1 clove garlic, minced
·
1 tbsp. homemade mustard
·
1-2 tsp. honey
·
1 tbsp. yogurt
·
salt and pepper
If the salad features lots of heavier greens like kale and
mature spinach I like to add some bacon to the mix (there are some health
arguments in favour of this*). My
favourite way to do this is to fry 1 or 2 pieces of bacon, chopped up, and then
toss the greens in the pan after turning off the heat. The greens don’t need to cook, they just get
quickly coated with the delicious bacon grease and then thrown in to the salad
and everything gets tossed together with a bit of cider vinegar.
Recently I took the bacon idea a bit further and fried
pieces of stale sourdough bread and thin slices of fresh radishes in the bacon
grease. This salad turned out
awesome. The end result was a salad featuring
fresh lettuce, a bit of kale, croutons and radishes. A nice addition would have been some crumbled
goat cheese but alas, I didn’t have any!
Another great addition to salads is fruit. When adding fruit—dried or fresh—I usually
leave out the sweetener in the dressing because I don’t want the salad to taste
too sweet. Now that strawberry season is
here I’m excited for all the new possibilities!
How about you, care to share any favourite salad additions, or family
recipe tips?
