Salad

You don't make friends with salad. Generally a bad idea for something you are about to eat. If you make friends by accident, just close your eyes and power through. Eat that salad like a man. Ha! Dollars to bagels, that phrase has never been uttered before.

Salads are easy. Fresh greens topped with fresh vegetables, maybe some fruit or nuts or seeds or cheese, and a dressing. Basically, salad is a pile of whatever fresh, ripe food you have in the house. I like my food in piles.

I started with some arugula and spinach. I added some red pepper sticks, cucumber quarter coins, and tomato wedges. I tossed this around a bit, taught it who's boss, and crumbled some feta over top. For the dressing I drizzled a splash of olive oil, another of balsamic and a sprinkling of tamari (soy) sauce. Five minutes work, nothing to it. If you can avoid cutting yourself and ignore the screams of the vegetables, you can make a tasty salad.

Salad. Hmmm, I'm still hungry....

Avocado Egg & Salad with Braid Roll

Salad:
Spinach
Arugula
1 Tomato
1/2 Avocado

1/2 Avocado
1 Egg
salt and pepper

Dressing:
1 teaspoon of pesto (see earlier post)
1 teaspoon of cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon olive oil
salt and pepper 

Preheat oven to 350F. Halve avocado unevenly. Crack an egg into large half of the avocado, put in oven until egg is cooked, about 15 minutes (broil for colour if desired). Cube rest of avocado and toss with greens in pesto dressing. Wedge the tomatoes and put on top. Eat salad, spread avocado egg thing on braid roll, enjoy.

Pretty good and healthy lunch. I'm not sure I'll do the egg avocado thing again. It wasn't bad, but I prefer avocado raw.

Polish Poutine & Tomato Feta Salad

I love perogies! They are pretty much the perfect food. Noodles on the outside, creamy potatoes on the inside with flavours of onion, cheese, bacon, or pretty much anything you want to put in them. The best way to eat them is in a dish I like to call the Polish Poutine: Fried perogies topped with loads of sour cream, crispy bacon, deeply caramelized onions and fresh ground black pepper. My heart beats faster every time I think about it. I'm not sure if it from pleasure or palpitations.

This is an incredibly satisfying meal in itself. Sometimes I add spinach, cilantro and/or peas to it just to get some green in there. I made an actual perogie poutine with squeaky curd cheese and rich gravy, but after the first bite novelty wore off it wasn't so great.

You don't really need anything else, but if you don't want to feel like a sac of potatoes yourself, make part of your meal a salad. I know, you don't make friends with salad, but luckily I already have lots of friends. So, here it is. A salad of baby spinach; tomatoes; feta; cilantro; black pepper; and a light homemade dressing of olive oil, cider vinegar and orange ponzu (flavoured soy sauce).

I love avocado in this salad, but I didn't have a ripe one today. Asparagus is also quite nice. Very refreshing.