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Thursday, August 30, 2012

Pass the salad, please

Salad


Me & Salads.

If I'm honest, we don't go back very far.  I never really developed a strong penchant for salads until my 20s, and even then, calling it a "penchant" might be one vocab word too far.  I enjoy them on occasion -- usually when someone else makes them -- and I had some cravings for salad during my last pregnancy.  Methinks it was partially the salad dressings I craved as well!

It turns out, much of the goodness of salads can come from the dressings themselves; that is, if you make them yourselves using good quality ingredients.

Wait, back that train up.  Did I just say the dressing could be good?? As in, good for YOU?  Yes, yes I did.  You no longer have to feel guilty about using too much dressing as long as you take the time to carefully control the ingredients when you're making these guys.  The good guys.

I just made a great salad from Publix Apron's Simple Meals, and a great Italian dressing via Penniless Parenting.

Here's the Salad, straight from Publix's website (from the meal grilled fish with gremolata and spring salad with parmesan):

Spring Salad with Parmesan
Ingredients
1 bag spring mix salad blend (4–6 oz)
1 1/2 cups shaved Parmesan cheese
1 cup pine nuts (or slivered almonds)
2 cups cherry tomatoes
1/4 cup Italian salad dressing 

Steps
  1. Place salad blend, cheese, and pine nuts in salad bowl. Cut tomatoes in half; add to salad.
  2. Add dressing; toss and serve.


And as for the salad dressing, hop on over to Penniless Parenting - Zesty Italian Dressing.  Use this in place of store-bought dressing and you can avoid all the preservatives and vegetables or soybean oil commonly used in store-bought salad dressings.

Then, consume - GUILT-free!

We enjoyed this next to some spaghetti with meat sauce the other night. Yum!

What's your favorite salad or salad dressing combination? Do you make your own dressings, and if so, how?

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