Tonight I was excited to make a salad from ingredients taken out of my little garden. My garden is small but I have kale, peas, spinach, romaine lettuce, and mint growing in it that were all used in the salad. I was a little concerned about using the kale in the salad, especially worried about if its flavor would be overwhelming or its texture. The kale was neither of those. I did make sure I removed the inner vein and just used the more tender leaves.
This salad can be made vegetarian if you leave the shrimp out, but I loved the shrimp with it. If you don’t like seafood, grill up some chicken instead. My salad fed 3 of us as our main course, we enjoyed it with freshly baked bread.
Ingredients:
Spinach (3 or 4 handfuls)
Kale (3 to 4 leaves)
Romaine lettuce (4 to 5 leaves)
Mint leaves (about 4 or 5 small leaves) – I prefer spearmint
Pea Pods (about 10, cut into bite size pieces)
Strawberries (10 to 12, sliced and quartered)
1 apple (core removed and chopped)
Shrimp (18)
Feta cheese (1/2 cup)
Red onion (chopped, about 1/8 of a onion)
Sliced almonds (1/8 of a cup)
Cranraisins (a handful)
Directions:
1)Wash greens
2) Prepare greens by tearing into bite size pieces
3) Cook shrimp in a sprayed pan (remove tail before cooking if it is still on) sprinkled with a little Old Bay, cook until white throughout about 3 to 5 minutes
4) Add remaining ingredients and toss
5) Use with your favorite light dressing; such as honey mustard, raspberry walnut, citrus, or just spray with a little oil and squeeze some fresh lemon juice on top
The mint and shrimp were probably the most dominant flavors, but I felt so healthy every time I bit into a piece of mint. I put the amount I used for 3 adult dinner salads but you can adjust amounts according to how many you are serving. Everything was pretty approximate.
Leave a Reply