Day 6: Pistachio and Avocado Salad

Day 6: June 26, 2011

Pistachio and Avocado Salad ***

Prepared by me; stand-a-lone lunch

Recipe created by me and Jon

Approximate Cost: $3

This salad was born from needing to have a salad, and using whatever was in my refrigerator. It is romaine lettuce, bleu cheese, pistachios, napa cabbage, scallion, avocado, dressed with a store-bought raspberry walnut vinaigrette. It was tasty- nice and light. But we decided that it was missing something, perhaps some sliced apples, or some fresh raspberries.

Day 5: Balsamic Grilled Chicken Salad

Day 5: June 5, 2011

Balsamic Grilled Chicken Salad *****

Prepared by Sammy's Woodfired Pizza Restaurant; shared with one other to go with dinner

Cost: $9.95 (for this half salad)

Went out to eat again with Jon. We normally don't eat out this much, but I suppose it was a little rough getting into the swing of things making salads! We ordered a pizza and a salad to split. We ordered this salad and LaDou's Barbeque Chicken Pizza. Believe me, they were both good. This salad was absolutely delicious, perfectly dressed and perfectly balanced. Plus again, good company.

Menu describes this salad as: mixed greens, marinated chicken breast, gorgonzola cheese, toasted walnuts, balsamic basil dressing

Day 4: Cobb Salad

Day 4: June 4, 2011

Cobb Salad ***

Prepared by me; dinner by itself

Approximate cost for 1: $4

Recipe created by me; it's a pretty standard kind of salad

Given that this is one of my favorite all-time salads, I'm not sure what warranted this as only a 3 star rating. Perhaps I was feeling weary of green salads 4 dinners in a row, but I think most of it was the fact that I used some leftover crispy chicken (from the first day of oriental chicken salad) and that was just weird. It needs grilled chicken.

The salad has romaine lettuce, roma tomatoes, avocado, fried chicken, bacon and bleu cheese. It was topped with ranch dressing made from a Hidden Valley Ranch packet. Sometimes I find that bleu cheese dressing with the actual bleu cheese is a little much for me. But perhaps the ranch dressing flavor is what threw it off for me as well. Maybe I should have stuck with the bleu cheese!!

Day 3: Grilled Steak Salad

Day 3: June 23, 2011

Grilled Steak Salad ****

Prepared by BJ's restaurant;

stand-a-lone dinner split with Jon

Cost: $12.95

I went to BJ's with Jon. Good salad, good company - what more can I say?

BJ's menu description: Grilled, marinated skirt steak, oven roasted potatoes and mixed baby greens, tossed with balsamic vinaigrette and bleu cheese crumbles, then topped with roasted yellow squash, red onion, zucchini, red pepper with tomato and hard boiled egg wedges.

If I was making this salad myself, I would definitely use more bleu cheese, and would likely use more of the side vegetables and a little less of the steak. Although I love my steak medium rare, like they did it, for a salad, I would probably have the steak more like medium, as well.

Day 2: Pear and gorgonzola salad

Day 2: June 22, 2011

Pear and Gorgonzola Salad *****

Prepared by Michelle Isom, to go with dinner (quite a delicious one)

Cost and exact recipe unknown

Michelle and I decided to have dinner together, and when two people who like to cook and enjoy good food get together, imagination then ensues. We had cornbread-and-bacon stuffed porkchops, oven-roasted ranch potatoes, and this salad. Then we had brownies for dessert. Yum, yum! After dinner, we watched an episode of Firefly ("Trash" to be specific. Funny!) What a wonderful evening! Michelle is awesomely fun, and although our friendship is budding, I predict an incredible one.

The salad contains greens (the salad spring mix you get from the store, I think she said), pears, gorgonzola cheese, chopped pistachios, and a standard olive oil vinaigrette.

Day 1: Oriental Chicken Salad

Day 1: June 21, 2011

Oriental Chicken Salad ****

Dinner by itself; prepared by Emily Wiggins

Approximate cost for 1: $3

Recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/applebees-oriental-chicken-salad-19253

I wanted an oriental chicken salad (like at Applebee's). I initially looked at my Betty Crocker cookbook, only to find it wasn't at all like I wanted. Thank goodness for google - and for talented cooks out there who can recreate salads from tasting them. The website above has a recipe for the salad from Applebee's. I pretty much followed the recipe, although I scaled it down quite a bit, and approximated a lot of my quantities. I also did not have red cabbage.

The result? Tastiness. Ah. It was good. Hence, the four stars. And salad-a-day is born - off to a good start. If every salad is this good, I'll be a happy little girl.

Suggested modifications: although it made a really yummy crispy chicken, it was awfully time consuming and messy. Just searing your chicken would still be a pretty good salad, as well.

Salad-A-Day

My sister and I began a project in which we wanted to have a different salad each day. We started on June 21, and the plan is to continue until July 31. 40 days of salads. I will list each day the salads and their ratings - but only some of them will have descriptions of how to make them - the ones that I made myself.

Welcome to salad-y-goodness.