The Simple Salad

A salad can be a feast for the eyes, which comes before the desire to eat it! We often enjoy a salad as dinner, or with dinner. Variety in color enhances the nutritional value of the meal. Salads are versatile: you can use what’s left in the fridge. It’s fast, easy and economical. This salad has only green leaf lettuce, red cabbage and yellow peppers. It is tossed simply with extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and a dried spice consisting of garlic, chili pepper and a little salt. While delicious on its own, you can make it dinner by throwing in small blocks of cheese, leftover roasted chicken, tuna, canned salmon, avocado, or sunflower seeds. You can make it a little sweet by adding dried cranberries, orange slices (fresh or mandarin), apples, gorgonzola (Waldorf style). You can add other greens or red lettuce, radicchio, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. A salad is really whatever you choose to put in it!

Just stay away from the creamy dressings, caesar dressing (VERY high in fat/calories) and bacon, and your meal will be very healthy.

Beet Salad You Will Love

Many of us grew up disliking (OK, hating) beets. They were those sour-tasting things from a can and if you splashed any juice on you, it ruined your clothes. (This was before oxidizing stain stick treatments).

Then I tasted REAL beets. The ones that come with the greens on top (which can also be cooked and eaten). What a difference. If you cook them just right, they retain some of the crunch and natural sweetness. They can also be roasted, but I’ll save that for another recipe. Beets are very high in antioxidants and protect against heart disease. They lower your risk of stroke, reduce blood  cholesterol and have anti-aging properties. Walnuts contain heart healthy polyunsaturated Omega 3 fats and antioxidants. They lower total and LDL (bad) cholesterol and are protective for blood pressure, heart disease, strokes and several cancers (breast, colon and prostate). Eat up.

This recipe is simple to prepare and lasts a full week in the fridge.

Ingredients:

1 lb. fresh, beets, boiled until soft

3/4cup chopped walnuts

3 Tbs apple cider vinegar

1 Tbs. mustard (I use grainy but any will do)

2 apples, julienned

1 Tbs fresh tarragon leaves (do not use tough stems)

Method:

Remove greens from beets. Save for sautéing in another recipe. Scrub and peel the beet roots. Smaller beets cook faster; if using large beets, allow more time for cooking. When done, julienne the beets and cool. While the beets cook, mix the vinegar, mustard and tarragon leaves for the dressing. Cut the apples when you are ready to assemble the salad so they don’t brown. When the beets are cooled to room temperature, mix them with the apples, walnuts and dressing. Toss to coat and enjoy!

PS-If you like more fermentation (pickling) you can leave the mix overnight before eating.

 

 

Charoset

This is by far, one of my favorite Passover foods. Why I don’t make it other times of the year I don’t know, but it is so great and I use it for many things other than its original purpose. It is a food that most Passover Seder hosts make symbolically and put a teaspoon of onto your plate. I want A LOT of it, not just the taste for the Passover story to be told. Anyway, everything at the seder has significance. Charoset looks like mortar, so it was invented to represent the mortar between the bricks used by the Jewish slaves to build Pharoh’s kingdom. I just love the stuff, and as a bonus, it’s healthy. Well, at least something at the Passover table is!

I added charoset to chicken leftovers to make it into a version of Waldorf salad. You can spoon it over ice cream, put it in hot cereal, or, if you are like me, just eat it off a spoon. Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

4 finely chopped apples (I like macintosh but many varieties work. If you use tart apples, you may need to add sugar. Taste first.n

1 C chopped walnuts

3 tsp brown sugar or honey

grated rind of 1 lemon

3 tsp cinnamon (more if you love cinnamon)

About 6 Tbs of sweet red wine or grape juice. Add more if it seems too dry.

Add all ingredients. Let sit for several hours so flavors meld and enjoy on a piece of matzah, plain water cracker or as I do; off a spoon!