Recipe of the Month

Dave and I got back from San Antonio yesterday (more on that to come) and after all the yummy Tex-Mex food we ate, all I wanted when I was planning this week's meals was salad. Lots and lots of salad.

My friend Alisha is an excellent salad maker and she told me her secrets to a great salad, which I'm happy to pass along here, along with a few of my own:
- your salad has to have a base--lettuce, spinach, etc
- add a nut--pecans, walnuts, almonds, whatever
- throw in a fruit--dried cherries, dried cranberries, apples, anything goes
- try an interesting cheese--feta, Gorgonzola, grated Parmesan, you name it
- give it a protein or a grain (or both)--one of Alisha's amazing salads has grilled chicken and whole-wheat spiral noodles, so don't be afraid to play around
- dress! Branch out and try more than just plain old Ranch!

Today for lunch my salad was especially delicious, so I thought I'd pass it along to you. I had green leaf lettuce (my spinach, bibb and buttercrunch lettuce in the garden is thisclose to being ready for cutting), cucumbers, apples, dried cranberries, slivered almonds, green onions and feta in poppy seed dressing. It was the stuff dreams are made of, I'm telling you.

I know this isn't a typical recipe, but with summer coming on, we all could use a little more salad in our life, whether it's due to swimsuit and/or wedding season, the it's-too-hot-to-cook blues or the necessity of NOT looking like a whale while giving birth in August (ahem). There's no reason salad has to be boring!