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What's Your Basic Salad

post #1 of 25
8/21/08 at 3:09pm
Thread Starter 
After looking through the archives and finding no thread or discussion specifcally about salads, it seemed a good idea to start one, especially since I'd like some fresh salad ideas. So, what's your standard go-to salad for dinner or lunch? What do you make most often?

shel
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post #2 of 25
8/21/08 at 3:49pm
what time of year Shel?
last night we had corn/mayo/hot sauce/lime/parmesan salad, arugula/pear/vinagrette salad, tomatoes with blue cheese dressing.....

Normally a Green Salad would have fruit (pears, apples, mandrian oranges, tomatoes.....one), red onions or green onions, toasted pecans or occasionally croutons, sugar snap or green beans
vinagrette/blue cheese/buttermilk herb
cooking with all your senses.....
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post #3 of 25
8/22/08 at 10:33pm
My basic, everday salad is pretty simple - shredded red leaf lettuce, some sort of mild, grated cheese and thinly sliced mushrooms. Usually dressed with some sort of oil and vinegar mix, sometimes Litehouse Chunky Bleu Cheese dressing.

I'm not a big fan of iceberg lettuce.

mjb.
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post #4 of 25
8/23/08 at 10:27am
It really depends on what is in season. This time of the year I eat a lot of mixed leaf lettuce(second crop is coming up nicely), radishes, carrots, shredded cabbage, onion, tomato, cucumber. All are from my garden. Once winter hits I will be back to boring iceburg mix from the store.
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post #5 of 25
8/23/08 at 10:35am
My wife likes a lot of greens variety in salad or she pretty much won't eat it. So my basic salad is a mesclun/spring mix from Costco. Her favorite dressing is a vinaigrette of my own creation based in balsamic and black vinegars. When pomegranates are in season she loves to sprinkle that salad with the pomegranate arils.

I'm a big fan of ceasar, but also like the salad described above.

Phil
more than taste fine
me eat it all the time
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post #6 of 25
8/23/08 at 3:16pm
Mine has greens, grated carrot, apple, raisins, sunflowers, cashews. Dressing is a creamy umeboshi plum vinaigrette.
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post #7 of 25
8/23/08 at 3:23pm
raw beets, pears, and a lemon vinaigrette.
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post #8 of 25
8/23/08 at 3:55pm
Classic Caesar's Salad with leftover barbeque chicken....yummmmo!! I'd make it at every opportunity I have but we do not have leftover barbeque chicken often...
Bill and Izzie: Proud parents of a soldier.
Looking back on all the mistakes I've made in my life, all I can say is I've gotten a lot of miles out of stupid.
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post #9 of 25
8/23/08 at 4:11pm
Funny you bring that up now.

I get a short lunch break and I got a "fajita beef salad" from a grocery store a couple days ago. The leaf lettuce was mostly frozen, tho I didn't notice when I bought it. Some of the lettuce was good, some of it was slimy, and some of the thicker parts were lettuce-icles. Chunks of frozen pieces. It had some corn that was out of a can (I can tell), and was almost worth eating, but not quite. The cilantro dressing was a good idea, but didn't compare to what I thought it would be. Most of what this store sells is pretty good.
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post #10 of 25
8/23/08 at 6:42pm
Gee, lettuce that is either frozen and icy, or thawed and slimey. Sounds, uh, just great.

Tonight I was working on a pan seared, roast pork tenderloin recipe that is a candidate for my friends and family holiday cookbook. Turned out pretty well. I should have taken some pictures of the salad, though. Fresh, rich green spinach leaves, pure white chunks of soft, fresh mozzeralla ( cow's milk, not buffalo, alas ) topped with red diced tomato. My wife commented on how nice and fresh the salad was presented on the plate. Tasted good too, though they were store bought tomatoes and not fresh from the garden. Soon, real soon for that priceless treat.

mjb.
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post #11 of 25
8/24/08 at 6:47am
My most basic go to salad is romaine lettuce, english cucumber, greek olives and oregano, with a simple evoo vinegraitte.

My favorite is caesar.
In a nutshell
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post #12 of 25
8/24/08 at 11:19am
I'd say our go-to salad is a mundane cucumber/tomato plate.

Slice the tomatoes and cukes and lay them out on a plate. Sprinkle with some chopped red onion. Then sprinkle with roasted cumin seed, followed by salt, followed by lemon juice, followed by evoo.

Lately, instead of slices, I've been cutting the cukes and tomatoes into thick julienne pieces, and that seems to work even better.
They have taken the oath of the brother in blood, in leavened bread and salt. Rudyard Kipling
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post #13 of 25
8/24/08 at 12:36pm
I LOVE Salad! I usually keep on-hand for salad during the week:

Red leaf and romaine lettuce - baby bella mushrooms - feta or goat cheese - tomatoes - pepperoncinis - red onion - deli mesquite turkey - avocado - almonds salad topping - and I break a couple club crackers over top instead of croutons.

Homemade Dressing: red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, canola oil, worchestershire, lemon juice, black pepper, oregano

When serving for company to accompany an Italian main dish I also add artichoke hearts, olives, fontinella cheese, roasted red pepper, salame - Anitipasto!

For Winter get togethers we do red leaf lettuce, walnuts, dried cranberries, blue cheese, bean sprouts, tomatoes with a balsamic vinagrette.

When I go out I order Cobb salad always. I have always imagined what could have been on Elaine's BIG salad she would always order on Seinfeld!??!
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post #14 of 25
8/24/08 at 12:49pm
Too many different kinds to love to call one the "basic." Dressings too. Funny how they go out of fashion. Whatever happened to Green Goddess in restaurants? Yet so good and so versatile.

Wonder if Smilie's Cobb salad is anything like the salad Mike Cobb made for Sid Grauman the night they were too drunk to stumble out of the Brown Derby. It's hard to get anything really close even in L.A. One thing you never see is the dressing.

BDL
What were we talking about?
 
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post #15 of 25
8/24/08 at 1:19pm
A few veges I really like in salad, besides the lettuce and tomatoes, are long thin strips of carrot, made with a potato peeler, toasted pine nuts, and lemon cucumbers. I also like big buttery croutons and a dressing made with fresh herbs.
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post #16 of 25
8/24/08 at 1:36pm
I doubt the Cobb Salads I find are anything like the Brown Derby one. I live in a small midwestern town where restaurant food can be mediocre but any Cobb is better than none.... I love the array of ingredients - esp the bacon, hard boiled eggs, cheddar and blue cheese, turkey or chicken and avocado. Most places omit at least one of these.

I love it with a vinagrette. Homemade dressings are the best.

I have a recipe for Green goddess dressing in the first cookbook I got when I was married. Never tried it. Isn't it oniony? If it is versitile, what sorts of things do you use it for? I'm up for trying it!
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post #17 of 25
8/24/08 at 1:56pm
Thread Starter 
Green Goddess dressing was very popular here in CA, at one time it may have been the most popular salad dressing. Then along came Ranch Dressing and knocked GG out of the spotlight. Being a New Yawkah, I never had GG dressing until relatively recently, as GG was really a west coast thing. The dressingwas, IIRC, created in San Francisco in the 1920's, at one of the big hotels here, in honor of (someone's) stage play entitled The Green Goddess.

In my files there is what is reported to be the "authentic" Cobb Salad dressing recipe ... I suppose it can be found with a Google search, but if anyone would like the dressing or the salad recipe, let me know. A good Cobb salad is hard to find around these parts - been bastardized too much over the years <sigh>

scb
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post #18 of 25
8/24/08 at 2:42pm
GG can be made with onion, green onions, chives or even garlic chives -- each for a varying degree of onion flavor. You can also push the parsley and the tarragon and hold back on the onion a bit. Up to you. I've written a killer recipe, slightly updated for modern tastes. If you're interested, I'll post it on condition you actually try it.

It's good on any garden, almost any vegetable, and almost any seafood salad. The farther you wander from a plain green salad or chip/vegetable dip, the better GG is compared to ranch. But if you want to dip fried zucchini you can't beat ranch.

BTW, ranch is another California dressing, it originated in Ojai.

BDL
What were we talking about?
 
http://www.cookfoodgood.com
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post #19 of 25
8/24/08 at 2:49pm
Thread Starter 
Please .... Thanks!

scb
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post #20 of 25
8/24/08 at 3:45pm
Green Goddess recipe freshly posted in the recipe thread. Read it while it's hot. Shel -- this will solve your leftover mayo problem.

BDL
What were we talking about?
 
http://www.cookfoodgood.com
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post #21 of 25
8/24/08 at 6:39pm
What is a baby bella mushroom?

mjb.
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post #22 of 25
8/24/08 at 7:08pm
Baby portabella aka crimini.
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post #23 of 25
8/25/08 at 2:02am
Grated beetroot, carrot and turnip with sweet vinegar dressing and seeds!
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post #24 of 25
8/31/08 at 11:10pm
Spinach, Balsamic vinegar (aged 12 years), and Gorgonzola.
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post #25 of 25
9/2/08 at 2:24pm
Dledmo got it! Nobody else likes spinach?
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