Salad

Zombiemambo

Recently I've been trying to reduce my protein intake and increase my grains, fruits and veggies intake. In short, what that means is salads. I've just been buying some lettuce with mixed veggies and mixing in some ranch or blue cheese dressing, and I want to try something a little more adventurous. Anybody have some good salad mixes they wouldn't mind sharing?

desperaterobots

This is a salad that is high in flavour, will last a few days, and has always been complimented. It's fucking colourful too, which is always good. This "recipe" makes about 3 or 4 days of salad for me, huge servings too. Use a large, large bowl.

Ingredients/process:

- 1 x can of chick peas, drained & rinsed obviously!
- A decent serving of pitted Kalamata Olives (that you'd either buy fresh from a delicatessan/fresh produce place, or even the stuff in jars. The brine is important as this provides the salty delicious flavour that ties it all together. If getting fresh, ask the person packaging them to weigh the olives and then load up the container in their brine. It should be watery and salty with only a little oil.) Obviously, if you're not a huge fan of olives, don't use too many, but they give the salad some occasional tang! Slice these things up roughly.
- 1 x cucumber. Chopped thick and rough. I make my slices roughly half an inch in width then cut into 1/8ths.
- As many snow peas as you can handle, chopped roughly. Make sure you get rid of the fibrous stringy bit that runs along the edges before chopping roughly, otherwise you'll have lots of tooth-floss in your salad.
- 2 x tomatoes, chopped into little bits. Alternatively, a punnet of cherry tomatoes chopped in half. Its better if the gooey insides mix with the rest of the vegetables.
- 1 x red capsicum, or bell peppers or whatever the hell americans call them. I'm assuming you're american here.
- 1 x red/spanish oniion. Use half of it. Chop as finely as you can.
- 1 quarter of a red cabbage, chopped finely. Use as much or as little as you want; really gives the thing a shit load of crunch.
- The juice of half a lemon. Important because it gives the salad flavour and retards spoiling of all your precious vegetables. Make sure to catch all the pips. Don't use too much or you'll have a lemonade salad instead of a light, refreshing, tangy creation.
- Throw the Kalamata olives through. Again, damn salty, so don't use too many if you're not sure about the flavour. Empty enough brine to lightly cover everything in the salad. Add more if you think it tastes too bland. Like the lemon juice, balance is important.
- If you want, chop up some little cubes of cheese to add to it before serving. The cheese will go foul if you store it, though, as the lemon juice will make it, i dunno, curdle or something? Whatever that reaction is called, it goes gooey and gross.

Really, you could add anything to this basic arrangement, but it's incredibly crunchy, light and refreshing. Goes well with italian food or steaky goodness.

EDIT: I forgot, sometimes I'll add a few red kidney beans or substitute the chick peas for red kidney beans entirely. And sometimes I add raw broccoli for its peppery awesomeness.

ihmmy

my fav salad

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can kernel corn, drained
1 c grape tomatoes, halved or quartered
1 c diced sweet bell pepper (colour is better, so not green if you can)
1 c diced mango
1/2c chopped green onion (optional, I never botherh with it)
4tbsp minced fresh cilantro (I tend to double this)
4tbsp lime juice (I also double this)
1tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin (or to taste)
1/8tsp chili powder (or to taste)
salt and pepper to taste
1c diced avocado

mix all, leave avocado til last as it likes to go brown as it oxidizes
I often add in some diced cucumber as well. Really the only things necessary are the beans, corn, tomato or sweet pepper, cilantro, oil, lime and cumin... the rest you can play with to your hearts content

vonPoonBurGer

Here's one of my favorite salads:

1 can of lentils, drained and rinsed
1 small can of mandarin orange pieces, drained
1/2 a green pepper, chopped fine
2 or 3 green onion stalks, ends removed and chopped fine
a large handful of dried cranberries
oil and vinegar (I usually use flax seed oil and cider vinegar, but olive oil and rice vinegar also work well)
salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together well, cover and let sit refrigerated for at least two hours. This gives the dried cranberries time to reabsorb moisture and plump up. It seems to get tastier the longer it sits, so I usually do a considerably large salad and eat it over two days. It's tasty on day one, but by day two it's moved up to fantastic. It will keep for at least three days in the fridge, possibly longer. Can't tell you how much longer, because it's rare for there to still be any left in my house after that length of time.

dispatch.o

I really like cucumber + soy sauce + tobasco + lemon juice

It's spicey as shit and tastes like nothing else.

powerss

Just as an FYI, for a quick and easy vinagrette:

Olive Oil
Balasmic Vinegar
Salt
Pepper
Honey
Mustard

Whisk together...