Tuesday, May 3, 2011

A spring salad at low cost!

Even though it has been a mite cold lately down where I live in southwest Missouri, the volunteer lettuce has done well. Overnight, the thermometer got down to 39 degrees which was a little on the cold side if you asked me. I waited for things to warm up before venturing out into the garden to harvest a small head of romaine and a single small carrot bit of which had survived the winter in good fashion.

Produce in hand; I decided to also grab a small amount of chives making sure to get a few flower tops while I did so. I had it in my mind to make a salad using whatever was leftover in the fridge.

After cleaning the lettuce and small carrot, I took a look in the fridge and found some iceberg lettuce, a stalk of celery and a small bit of bell pepper all of which had been purchased at the local grocery. The lettuce is running somewhere between a buck and a half and two bucks depending on which store you shop at. And, the bell pepper was something like $1.79, a luxury I will not be able to afford very often. Thankfully, I'm growing my own.

For a dressing, rather that store bought, I mixed up equal parts of ketchup and mayo to make a simple Ranch style mix. To this I added a little water, mixed it up and then poured it over the salad. The end result was pretty darn good for an old country boy.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on your low-cost salad. My lettuce, planted in October, survived and has thrived this spring. There's nothing better than good-ol home grown lettuce in the spring.