All You Can Eat Salad

America's definitely known for its handsome portion sizes and buffet bars but it also does salads like no other country I've been to does. Thanks to Whole Foods and two nutritionally minded pals I discovered that salads no longer had to just be about lettuce, tomatoes and scallions (if we were lucky).

With our modest earnings from waitressing at a bar near Wrigley Field.....

We'd bob on down to our local Whole Foods market, we were on a J1 summer VISA and lived in Evanston...... it was home to North Western University and that guy...... Jerry... Jerry Seinfeld used to go to the gym in the town....

It was also home to this famous house........

The Home Alone house! My friend who is nuts about houses also tells me the Mean Girls house was here too, I never saw it though.

Back to the salad. So we went into the market and up to the salad bar and there was every kind of nut and seed under the solar system available.  There was tasty dried fruit to thrown in like cranberries and there were about 12 different types of lettuce to choose from. Dorothy was along way from home...... there were dozens of cheeses and meats and vedge and fruit and then loads of lovely dressings. So what did we do? We bunged a whole pile of stuff in together, headed for the beach and savoured our lambs ear lettuce salads with their feta cheese and cranberries.... 

Six years later ans and back in Ireland I'm still living by their salad precedence. Bang it allllll in toss on some dressing and dig in Dorothy.

My must haves are.....

Cranberries or raisins.....
Raw peppers
Mixed lettuce leaves
Red onion
Baby tomatoes
Par-boiled brocoli
Grated raw carrot
Bit of hummus

And for the dressing.....

I use the Avoca Honey Mustard Dressing.....

Use 1 part balsamic vinegar to 3 parts olive oil, just fill up a small enough cup with the two
1 glove of crush garlic
2 teaspoons of honey mustard
Squeeze of half a lemon
1/4 teaspoon of mayonaisse

In a plastic bottle with a lid, shake vigorously until well combined.......