Green your Diet with this Super Salad Recipe
An easy way to green your diet is to head out to your local farmers' market and buy local produce. Food sold at farmers' markets are generally grown in the area where you live. If you want to shrink your carbon footprint, reduce the distance between where you live and where your food is grown. The produce you buy will be at its freshest because it won't ripen in the back of a truck.
An easy way to make use of the seasonal bounty of fruits and vegetables is to chop them up into a delicious salad. But have you ever wondered how to make a very appetizing salad? Here are a few tips and general guidelines to help you turn whatever you find in season into an delectable salad.
Secrets to Super Salads
Begin with fresh ingredients in season. If tomatoes are not in season, don't use them. The flavours of seasonal fruits and veggies are far superior. Use what is freshest and most flavourful.
You'll generally start with choosing leafy greens. Mix greens or mescaline are excellent as they provide a variety of flavours in the salad. These should be washed and properly dried so that the dressing sticks to the leaves. A good salad spinner will work, but you can also use clean dishtowels and a little patience.
A yummy salad has a variety of textures. Look for a combination of crunchy and creamy ingredients.
Crunchy ingredients including, carrots, beets, radishes should be graded or chopped very finely.
Mix your crunchy ingredients with creamy ones: such as ripe pears, strawberries, raspberries. To get the best salad use seasonal and local ingredients but if you need a few other ingredients don't limit yourself. Avocados and Mangoes add a punch of taste and creaminess.
Don't forget to dress your salad. A quick homemade dressing is always far superior to a store bought one. A simple mix of olive oil, lemon, honey, salt and herbs add flavour without masking all of the other ingredients.
For inspiration on great salads check out Jamie Oliver's Cook with Jamie.
- Cook with Jamie
Link to Jamie Oliver's website page about his book Cook with Jamie
It's a cooking course in a book, where you'll find instructions and general cooking methods. He wants to inspire just about anyone to cook from scratch.
You'll find plenty of reasons to eat more local fruits and veggies
in Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food
- In Defense of Food | Michael Pollan
Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it? Because most of what we're consuming today is not food, and how we're consuming it in the car, in front of the TV, and increasingly alone is not r
and Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon year long journey of local
eating in The 100-Mile Diet or Plenty
- 100 Mile Diet: Local Eating for Global Change The 100-Mile Diet Books
When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically traveled at least 1,500 miles from farm to plate.
