Lucky 13 Lunch Salad

I came home for lunch yesterday and put together healthy green salad. I counted 13 ingredients, not counting the dressing, thus the name.

• Lettuces and Spinach
• Romaine & some stuff I don't know the name of from the "salad bowl" I bought at the Farmer's Market Saturday. (See below)
• Red Cabbage
• Strawberries
• Zucchini
• Yellow Squash
• Red Pepper
• Cilantro
• Grated Hard Cheeses
• Feta Cheese
• Croutons
• Cucumber
• Almonds
• Sunflower Seeds
• Janz Sweet Balsamic Vinaigrette

You can see I tore up the green stuff, sliced the zucchini and yellow squash really thin. I didn't peel the squash, (I scrubbed them thoroughly since I wasn't going to peel them)but I did peel the cucumber. I sliced very thin layers from my red cabbage, and thin slivers from a red pepper.
The strawberries were HUGE, so they were quartered and then sliced.
The nuts are in a plastic bag in the freezer, so I just grabbed a handful for the top. The croutons were fresh, in my toaster over, so those topped everything off.


The strawberry is a very surprising addition to a green salads. I saw it somewhere about a year ago and really like the pop of tartness you get in the midst of the other ingredients. Of course the strawberries have to be fresh—frozen would be mushy—so I do this when they're in season. I've also used blackberries and blueberries. As I ate it I wondered about adding banana slices. It would have to be a firm banana, but I'll try that while I can still get fresh strawberries and see how it goes.



About the "Salad Bowl"
A vendor at the Cleveland County Farmer's Market sells pots full of mixed lettuces. This one was $2.50 I think. I put it on my porch on Saturday and let it get too dry and Sunday it was droopy and completely limp. Thank goodness a good soaking brought it back to life. We had a thunderstorm on Sunday night and on Monday it was back to full crispness.