August 5, 2008

Our family has developed a serious taste for salad! I hope you have developed this in your family as well. Most Americans don't prefer to eat salad, yet raw vegetables are absolutely essential to the good health of you and your family. In fact, vegetables should make up the bigger part of our daily diet. Abbey made this beautiful salad for us one day last week. It looks like a lot of work, doesn't it?

But guess what? If you plan right, making a salad for your family every day can be so easy! Here's what you can do: Purchase your salad base - spring mix, baby spinach, and romaine lettuce are all good choices for this. As soon as you get home from the store (or as soon as you possibly can) wash your greens in a water mixture of 1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup white vinegar, and water - enough to fill the bowl of your salad spinner. Soak your greens in this mixture for about 10 minutes. The vinegar and peroxide will kill any parasites enjoying your produce. This sounds gross, I know, but parasites are a very real part of our world and they do live on things like lettuce. The peroxide/vinegar mixture will also destroy any bacteria that would cause your lettuce to go bad quickly. (If you don't have a salad spinner, you really should get one. Otherwise, just use a large bowl to soak your greens. You can use a simple colander to drain them.) After you've soaked your greens, rinse and drain them well. Store these in the refrigerator to use whenever you're ready to make a salad. Chop your cucumber, tomato, peppers, onion, broccoli, or whatever you like, fresh each day. Add them to your already prepared greens for a delicious, nutritious salad! You can even use leftover chicken to top off your salad for a wonderfully easy summer meal. You can add taco meat for taco salad or grilled steak for steak over salad. Once you've got the greens cleaned and ready for use, everything else is a breeze. Enjoy!

5 comments:

The Capo's said...

Yummm, I love salad too!! I don't know what you grow in your garden but adding home grown mint, basil,arugula,fennel,and celery(it's so different than what you buy in the store)really makes it taste great.

Jessica R. said...

Thanks for the tips Mary, I really want to start adding more salads to our meals :)

Mary said...

Thank you, ladies! Gina, I love your ideas about putting fresh HERBS in salad - I've only tried parsley and cilantro but am going to try your suggestions! Thanks! Jessica, I'm glad you're going to be making more salads, they'll be wonderful with your fried green tomatoes!

Anonymous said...

now, are you using regular OTC peroxide? or the 35% food-grade peroxide? 1/4 c seems a lot for the 35% stuff.

g

Mary said...

"G" -

Since the time I posted this, I have changed the way I wash my salads. Now I use acidic water to wash the vegetables and then rinse them in alkaline water. See the link on my page called Ion4Life. BUT - when I used the peroxide I just used the regular kind you can buy in the grocery store. It worked just fine.