Chinese Salad

Okay, I really don't know if this is a salad that the Chinese people would eat, or even if they eat and enjoy salad. But it uses some ingredients that are sometimes found in Chinese cooking (at least, the kind of Chinese foods that I've had here in America), and together they make a green salad that, so far, is my favorite. Here's what I put in it:

1 head red lettuce, chopped or shredded

1 bunch spinach (washed, stems removed, etc., etc.)

1 small head Napa cabbage (I found this to be young and tender and mild, with just the right amount of crunch), sliced thinly

1 package cherry or grape tomatoes

2 tomatoes, sliced for salad

1 or 2 carrots, peeled and shredded

1/4 to 1/2 head of cauliflower flowerettes

1/2 cup or so (not a lot) of purple cabbage, chopped small

Combine all those ingredients, and any others you like, and serve with a bit of ranch dressing and some Chinese noodles and slivered almonds sprinkled on top.

I just ate this for my mid-morning snack, but I ate it over the top of the leftover sweet-and-sour pork, brown rice, and sauteed vegetables. It was soo good.

For the sauteed vegetables, I put 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a heated pan, and sauteed the following until tender:

1 cup celery, sliced on the diagonal

1 cup onion, chopped

1 can bean sprouts, rinsed and drained

1 can mushrooms, drained

You may not like the mushrooms or the bean sprouts, so feel free to leave them out. You may like to try some other vegetables that I did not want to put in, such as bamboo shoots or water chestnuts.

Serve over a bed of brown rice, with sweet and sour pineapple pork on top, followed by the above salad.

I'm liking how I can eat a big mid-morning snack and it's okay. I mean, sure, I ate two pieces of toast and two eggs and a plum for breakfast. But that was three hours ago, and I was hungry for more than "six almonds" or "1/2 cup of cottage cheese" or some other ridiculously unsatisfying suggestion from some of the diet advice that I've read. The emphasis in the Lean and Free 2000 Plus book is on feeding our bodies, not starving them, and I really like that!

Spinach-Fruit Salad

With our dinner last night I wanted to serve a salad, but the only greens I have on hand are from a bag of spinach that I bought a few days ago. Usually I think of spinach salad as having strawberries in it, but I don't have any fresh strawberries on hand. I do, however, have lots of apples, and a few walnuts. Oh, and look!, there are some dried cranberries, too! So I looked up a recipe for spinach-apple-walnut salad. I found several to choose from. I guess the main thing I needed was a dressing recipe. So here's an approximation of what I came up with (measurements are approximate):

Divide evenly between two serving plates:

2 handfuls of spinach

1 apple, cored and cubed

a few walnut halves, broken (I actually heated a frying pan and put these in it, along with a sprinkle of sugar, and stirred them around til the sugar melted and coated them a bit)

a few Craisins or dried cranberries

In a blender combine:

2 tablespoons frozen cranberry juice concentrate

2 tablespoons water

4 tablespoons safflower oil

2 tablespoons vinegar (I used cider)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon Mrs. Dash

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Blend all together. Taste to see if you need to add more salt or sugar or vinegar or something to give it a bit of pleasing tang. Then pour a little over the two salads just before serving.

We also had some hamburger-stroganoff for dinner, which I made as roughly follows:

1 pound hamburger, cooked with

half a large onion, chopped

When the hamburger is longer pink and the onion is soft and cooked through, drain the juices and add:

a can of cream of mushroom soup

a can of mushrooms

a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce

Stir till heated through, then remove from the heat and stir in a big spoonful of sour cream or plain yogurt. Serve over cooked rice or noodles.

Cooked carrots and broccoli were the vegetable(s) we ate with the meal, and I had a slice of bread and butter with honey on top for dessert.

Anyway, it was a good meal.

Tonight's Dinner and a Salad Dressing Recipe

Okay, just ignore all the pepperoni. I should have taken the picture before I added that. This here pizza has on it a chopped onion, chopped red bell pepper, a can of mushrooms, some pineapple tidbits, and the leftover carrots-broccoli-cauliflower from last night's dinner. That is, it has all that in addition to the pepperoni (which someone left in our fridge when they moved to Texas, so I figured this is a good time to use it).

Side dishes: green salad with lettuces and spinach (yum!), and a fruit salad with grapes, an apple and an orange. Oh, and the best dressing for a basic fruit salad is....a little sugar!

What can I say? I'm a hypocrite? Maybe. Oh, I know, I'm trying to make sure that we have something planned and ready to eat each and every meal of each and every day. Does that make it okay?

Oh, wait. Here's the best salad dressing recipe ever. It's from Neva. This is what we'll have on our green salad tonight:

Italian Dressing

1/4 cup red wine vinegar (or Balsamic)

2 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons salt

2 teaspoons Mrs. Dash seasoning

3 tablespoons sugar

1-2 tsp. prepared mustard (not powdered mustard) (mustard is the secret ingredient that helps the oil and vinegar to bind together and not separate)

2/3 cup vegetable oil (1/2 extra virgin olive oil, half safflower or canola)

Whisk or shake it all together and serve over your green salad.

Ellen