Salute to the salad

I think all too often salad gets the shaft. We think of salad as a mish mash of iceberg lettuce and mealy tomatoes. (Side bar: What exactly is the point of iceberg lettuce and who buys it? While it offers crunch, it provides no nutritional value. I'm a big believer in making every crunch count, in flavor and nutrients.) We are salad fiends at my house, but there are two things you'll never find in my fridge - iceberg lettuce and bottled salad dressing.

We eat salad almost every single night, and in summer it takes center stage as the star of our meal. My youngest son is a veritable rabbit and prefers a side salad to fruit or fries when we go to Chick-fil-A for a treat. Whether we're noshing on spinach or hearts of palm or endive, my sons devour their salads at dinner. With a bit of olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice and garlic, you can whip up a tasty vinaigrette that's yummy, healthy, and fresh. I add fresh herbs and dijon mustard to my vinaigrette to mix things up once in a while. If you use stellar ingredients in your salad, you don't need bottled chemicals and high fructose corn syrup to mask the hearty earthy flavors.

Some of our family's favorite concoctions that I toss in the ancient wooden salad bowl that is admittedly reminiscent of 1974:

So as you can see, we consume our fair share of salads. And we relish every bite. With fresh ingredients, you're bound to dish up a tasty side that's worthy of more limelight than we bestow on the lowly salad. Toss out your vision of a tossed salad and experiment with all the greens and goodies that fill our farmers market stands well into the fall. I say it's time to salute the salad!