Every month, Jenna at
That Wife holds a food challenge. This month’s challenge is to make a salad and lucky for me it's probably my favorite thing to both make
and eat at dinner with the husband.
For as long as I can remember, my mother made a huge salad every evening with dinner. I don't recall ever seeing a bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch in our fridge either... or any type of bottled dressing for that matter. My mom is a salad goddess. Seriously. I grew up watching her create her daily masterpiece and there isn't really an exact recipe - it's all thrown together by taste and sight. My mom would say her salads are a little different from day-to-day, however Dad says they all taste the same - amazing. Hopefully my husband would say the same about mine. So I give to you my version of...
Mommy's Famous Lebanese Salad
2 handfuls of baby spinach
2 handfuls of any other type of lettuce
(we like the Fresh Express Tender Baby Greens)1 roma tomato
1/2 cucumber
1/2 zucchini*
1/2 avocado*
1-2 chopped green onions
a sprinkle of crumbled feta cheese
(sorry, there is parmesan in my photo - we were out of feta.)Combine above yummies into a bowl. Here's the tricky part... the following ingredients can be adjusted to your taste.
Garlic powder
(give it a few good shakes...)Salt
Fresh ground black pepper
Crushed dried mint leaves, about 1 1/2 teaspoons
(trust me here, I promise.)Dried basil, about 1 teaspoon
After adding the spices, juice 1/2 a lemon over the salad
(attempt to fetch out lemon seeds if you can - those bad boys taste horrible) and drizzle 3 tablespoons of oilve oil over. Gently toss the salad well to combine spices, oil, lemon.
And an important note creating you own: Once the dressing is added to the salad it should be served ASAP or else the lettuce and veggies will wilt and become soggy. If you would like to prepare ahead of time, combine veggies and spices but do not add the oil and lemon until the very last minute.
*Zucchini and avocado are not really part of a "real" Lebanese salad but we love them too much to leave them out.So there you go! Hope you can try something new - and don't be afraid of the mint on the salad. I promise it won't end up tasting like a tic-tac.
Posts
