Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Heaven Is A Salad

I'm really not a big salad fan.  They're usually romaine or iceberg lettuce, neither of which have a lot of flavor.  And what usually goes in them is normally pretty boring to my palette.  Growing up salad was green leaf lettuce, carrots, tomato, cucumber, and sometimes walnuts and avocado with an Italian vinaigrette.  While this kind of salad is totally edible and pretty good, it's not delicious.  You know what salad is delicious?  The kind I made last week!

I was at Trader Joe's last week and saw some lovely arugula.  To my husband's credit, it was he who suggested making a salad with it when he saw me admiring it.  But what to put in it?  Well right across the aisle there were some lovely-looking dried cranberries.  And we had some toasted almonds at home, along with some turkey bacon that would be yummy on top.  And of course, what's a good, fancy salad without goat cheese?  We got a big brick of that too. 

It came out better than I could have hoped (sorry, no pictures were taken before my scarfing).  It was so simple, just a few ingredients, but I could not get enough!  The ingredients were just so flavorful and went so well together.  The arugula worked really nicely in it.  And no dressing!  I'm just not a fan of dressing, and really there was enough that stood out in the salad that I don't think it needed it.  The goat cheese provided a nice creamy texture to go along with the roughness of the arugula (I'm big on texture).  

A good dressing is heavenly, but I have yet to find a heavenly store-bought dressing.  Any recommendations?  Have you made a good salad lately?

4 comments:

Spectater said...

no dressing?!?!?

that never occurred to me. i'll have to try it some time. healthier, that's for sure.

store bought dressing is NEVER as good as something you can just make yourself. of course, i almost never make salad. it just takes up a lot of room and prep work for what seems like a throw away part of my meal. i can steam some broccoli or asparagus much faster.

JuLo said...

Yeah, I've just never been a big dressing person. You know, unless the salad is lame enough to need it. :p Also, I just couldn't think of a dressing that would be good with it. A light vinaigrette, sure, but I didn't want that sour flavor.

Yeah, I usually just steam a veggie too. This salad was the main course though. ;)

flanthrower said...

Some Trader Joe's salad dressings are pretty good although I definitely think store bought (no matter how good) pales in comparison to home made. They are worlds apart. Most of the time I just go super simple...olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper. If I'm feeling fancy I'll add a bit of dijon mustard (for creaminess) and some finely minced garlic.

JuLo said...

True. I tend to like dressings in the refrigerated section a lot more than the stuff off the shelf. We actually got some creamy caesar dressing, but Husband ended up leaving it out on the counter all day, so we ended up throwing it away. I had some on one of the salads I made before that incident and it was good, just not necessary.

I've not tried just a simple dressing like that before. It sounds good! I've also made one that was similar, but with cider vinegar and a little sugar. It was really good! Just, again, not so great on this salad.