Look, I made a Salad!
This is in response to a post I saw the other day on a social media site showing a pile of bacon and one small leaf of baby lettuce. I am not sure what the meaning of the post is but after we saw it we wanted salad. Cobb Salad we call it and we use everything in the kitchen along the way of fresh vegetables and some savory items in including some kind of animal protein and often more than one. Served along some chips of toasted pita bread this is a full delicious meal that is easy as making bacon.
I filed this under cooking but there was little cooking involved. OK I boiled a few eggs and a hand full of shrimp, and then there was the bacon, but the eggs and shrimp were boiled and the bacon was done in the oven so by my reckoning it could hardly count as cooking. Thick slab bacon cooks @ 425 for around 10 minutes or a little more depending on the desired crispness.
The part of this salad we really like are the cool weather baby greens but any age is good. When we are coming out of a long protracted winter nothing is as nice as seeing new crops springing out of the soil. These include arugula, leaf lettuce, spinach, beet greens and more.
Buy them separately to tailor the mix to your liking or buy one of the premixed packs of seeds available from catalogs or farm supply stores. These tasty little shoots can be easily grown under lights or even a sunny window. Any size container will do and we like the 12 by 18 inch black plastic nursery flats. The flats are only a few inches deep but it’s OK since we are only interested in the baby greens and a plant a few inches tall does not have a huge root system.
A Word Of Caution* Unless you like fiery greens be careful of mixes that include mustard varieties. A few years ago we were cultivating green in the green house, ( redundant? ) and we each sampled some fresh mustard and we both agreed later we were fairly sure we were burning up from the inside out. But if you like this kind of burn go for it.
Another nice spicy addition would be radish sprouts. Crunchy and spicy.
If you do not grow them yourself then scout the farmers markets and find who has the varieties you are looking for. Some growers are happy to put in a stock of what you want if you come back week after week. Good for you and good for them.
If buying from the grocery store the same shopping around rule applies. Many smaller “whole food” store will have fresh greens. That said the specialty stores are liable to have high prices for quality greens out of season.
The nice thing about salad is its not an invention and its not a recipe. It’s what ever you want in a bowl with a fork.
