The Ultimate Green Salad Formula {Naptime Simple Tips}

Greens, Apples, Gorgonzola, Candied Walnuts

What’s Going on Today: Full fall mode! Making Apple Chips by the dozen, first fall walk where we actually collect leaves.

Naptime Goals: Make Eggplant & Prosciutto Lasagna (a fall favorite), bake Peppermint Patty Brownies.

Tonight’s Menu: Lasagana, Green Salad, Brownies.

Parenting Lesson of the Day: You can lead them to the salad bowl, but you can’t make ’em eat it!

I love to cook during naptime and share what I make with you. During my website project I spent some time reviewing older posts, deleting a few recipes I hope you never make, and reminiscing while browsing through others. As I was reading my menus from last winter I noted that I always talk about pairing a lot of my meals with green salads. It’s true, I often serve salads on the side, I love the taste and health factor. Then I realized that never once have I actually given you a recipe for a green salad. Part of the reason for this, I suppose, is that I don’t make my salads during naptime. I toss them together right before dinner. But that doesn’t make them any less relevant to the family meal. So today I’m going to share my approach to salads. Almost everyone I know serves a salad once in a while, and here is how I do it.

When it comes to deciding on a salad, the menu usually dictates the type of greens I buy, which, in turn, dictate the add-in’s. For example, rich dishes like lasagna go well with fresh arugula or baby spinach. These greens pair well with pine nuts and Parmesan. A lighter main course, like lemon chicken, calls for a heavier side such as an iceberg wedge drizzled with blue cheese and bacon. In short, I use my salads to balance flavors.

The other day, as I was tossing together our salad I realized that I have a basic formula I work from nearly every time I make our nightly salads. It is nothing especially formal or exacting, but it creates a delicious salad single time. Of course, I make our salads for two these days. My daughter, ever the toddler, still refuses to let leafy greens pass her lips in their original form. If our salad calls for spinach or arugula I usually chop it up and wilt it into a sauce to pair with her pasta. Oh well, I am sure she will come along eventually. In the mean time, this is my formula and I’m sticking to it.