This Tuesday Tip is a recipe for a very flexible, sweet and sassy salad!
Yes, you read that right — Salad. I know I’ve avowed my aversion to the stuff in various posts, but this is one salad recipe that I love and will actually eat without much complaint. For those of you in the New York area, you may have seen something similar in Cosi, one of the chain sandwich shops. Nordstrom’s also makes a similar salad in their store cafe.
Why is it so tasty? Well, it’s got the sweet thing going, but also, you can mix and match any of a number of ingredients to make it just the way you want it. So, I’ll give you some of the variations and let you decide how to personalize.
Sweet and Sassy Salad
2 to 3 cups of greens (you can use romaine, red leaf lettuce, mesclun greens, arugula, spinach. I like it best with the mesclun greens. Definitely avoid the iceberg lettuce route)
1/4 cup crumbled goat cheese (you can also substitute blue cheese which is my favorite yum)
1/2 of a Ripe pear cubed (a nice crisp apple will also work)(if you like it sweet, use the whole fruit!)
1/2 of a tomato, cubed
Handful of dried cranberries (or raisins or currants)
Handful of pecans, chopped (or walnuts)
Handful of chopped scallions (but not onions unless you’re doing a mild Vidalia or Maui onion)
Put all of the above in a bowl and toss with a low fat balsamic vinegarette or another mild salad dressing. You don’t want to use a strongly flavored salad dressing because that will interfere/clash with the more delicate flavors of the fruits and cheeses. This salad is so flavorful, you may want to try it with just a hint of vinegar sans oil or even a citrus vinegarette.
A tip for chopping the nuts without having them go flying all around the counter — stick them in a sandwich bag, put them on the chopping board and with the back of your knife, just give them a few whacks. I guess you’re actually crushing them, but the nuts will break into the pieces and then you just empty the bag onto your salad!
Voila! A sweet and sassy salad that has a combo of things that are sure to keep you satisfied for a while, namely, some proteins, fats and carbs. One big dieting mistake is to just have plain ol’ salad with dressing and while the volume of the salad will fill you up, without any proteins/fats/carbs to sustain your energy levels, you are just asking for a major energy crash that will make you have hunger pangs.
Toss in some salad shrimp for protein or hard boiled egg.
by Irene Peterson April 8th, 2008 at 8:58 amOoops, I’ve just upped the taste factor and the calorie count!
What also might work well is some crumbled turkey bacon.
Turkey bacon? you say. Well, my daughter made us try it and it was tasty and less fattening than real bacon.
by Caridad April 8th, 2008 at 9:02 amSounds great, I’ll have try this recipe!
It will fit perfectly into my diabetic diet
plan. Saw my doctor this morning and
he is so pleased with my situation. My
weight continues to move downward
and my A1c, which is a very important
reading on my labs panel is 5.8! I am
so happy!
Pat Cochran
by Pat Cochran April 8th, 2008 at 2:47 pmThat is awesome, Pat! Congrats. I guess you might have to watch the raisins/fruit in this, but it really is a tasty salad.
by Caridad April 8th, 2008 at 2:49 pmOh this is very similar to one I make except I use almonds and i never thought of the pear so I’m going to try your way next time!!!
by jeanne April 8th, 2008 at 2:56 pmA ripe pear is like heaven! Try it out!
by Caridad April 8th, 2008 at 3:01 pmOoh sounds very good. I will have to try. There are so many items you can put in a salad now a days that you wouldn’t think would be good but actually are like blueberries or strawberries
by Cheryl April 8th, 2008 at 5:58 pmSounds yummy, but I don’t know about goat cheese.
by Virginia H. April 8th, 2008 at 6:28 pmIf you don’t like yogurt, Buttermilk or other tangy things, you may not like goat cheese since it sometimes has that same tang. Go for the blue cheese version!
by Caridad April 9th, 2008 at 8:02 amIt’s tasty and I’m not a salad person, so you know it’s good to be good for me to eat it!
by Caridad April 9th, 2008 at 8:03 am