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Recipes

Your Choice Tossed Salad

Invent your own green salad with whatever you like. Here are some ideas:

Salad Greens:
Make up a mixture of greens such as green or red leaf lettuce, Boston lettuce, Romaine, spinach leaves, arugula leaves, watercress, shredded cabbage, or salad mix. Allow about 1 cup per person.

Other Stuff:
Radishes, cucumber, chopped tomato, grated carrot, red, yellow, or green peppers, red onion slices, green onions, broccoli or cauliflower pieces, canned beans, chicken or fish pieces such as tuna, crumbled bacon or bits of ham, sliced hard boiled egg, grated or crumbled cheese such as feta or Bleu cheese, croutons, sliced olives, leftover small pasta such as shells, fresh herbs, sturdy sprouts, halved red grapes, apple, pear, or orange slices, avocado, nuts, seeds, dried cherries or cranberries.

Dressings:
Some of the supermarket-bottled dressings are expensive. Making your own saves money and you’ll know what’s in it. If you do buy bottled dressings, buy the ones where you can recognize the ingredients. (Olive oil, garlic, etc.) Why should you make your own dressing? Because you can.

Homemade Croutons      

It’s best to buy unsliced bread so that you can slice it into fat croutons. Try any sturdy bread such as French or Italian bread, whole grain, or sour dough – it can be any stale, but not moldy, bread that you want to use up.

What You’ll Need:

2 one-inch thick slices bread
Extra-virgin olive oil
Optional: 1/2 teaspoon each: garlic salt, dried basil, dried oregano
What You'll Do:

1. Preheat the oven to 400. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Slice 2 pieces of bread one-inch thick.

2. Slice the bread into one-inch strips, turn the bread, and slice across the strips so there are one-inch cubes.

3. Generously drizzle olive oil onto the foil and spread it evenly with your fingers. Place the bread on the foil in a single layer. If you want to season the bread, stir together the seasonings in a small bowl. Sprinkle over the croutons.

4. Bake for 5 minutes and remove from the oven. Stir the croutons so they’re turned over. Return to the oven for another 3-4 minutes until the croutons are lightly browned. Remove from the oven to cool.

Tools:

Aluminum foil, baking sheet
Cutting board
Bread knife or serrated knife

To Prepare:

1. Put the lettuce leaves in a colander and rinse with cold water. Shake the colander to get rid of excess water. (Or use a salad spinner.) Place the lettuce leaves on a dry dish towel, not terry cloth, tearing the larger leaves into bite-sized pieces. Roll up the dish towel, put in a plastic bag, and refrigerate until ready to use. (Use within 24 hours.)

2. Chop up your choice of “stuff” with a chef’s knife and add to the salad. Keep it simple, three ingredients at most. Toss the salad and dressing in a large bowl just before serving. Add just enough dressing to barely coat the lettuce, not drown it.

Tools:

Colander or salad spinner
Dish towel
Cutting board
Chef’s knife
Grater

By: Anne Vassal 
by GL | 2/1/2016
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