For whatever reason, for most of my life I had salads in this category of "foods that have to be a certain way" - Cobb Salad, or Caesar Salad, or Green Salad - they were always recipe-based and were mostly just side dishes. Token vegetables, you might say.
Then I went to a college that had a salad bar with a wide range of ingredients available and I realized that that a satisfying salad can be a mix of whatever you want to throw together. So far I haven't actually had anything turn out badly. (Let's not take that to the extreme of bringing back gelatin salads, though, please!)
Now I have a sort of chaotic approach to salad-making, something like, "What of these things in front of me might taste good together?" Today's random combination: spring mix, a few cut-up strawberries, a pear cut into pieces, one of the kids' cheese sticks cut into cubes, a handful of salted pumpkin seeds, and a drizzle of raspberry dressing. It kind of reminds me of a "chaos gardening" video I saw recently.
The haskap berries in the back yard will be part of this week's plans, and soon we'll be flooded with raspberries as well, so I'm seeing lots of fruit-based salads in the coming days.
What's your favorite salad combo? What's growing in your area right that you could throw into a salad to give it some color and interest?
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