Who doesn't eat salad? There are warm ones and cold ones, salads for summer and salads for winter, comfort salads piled high with protein and cleansing salads dotted with sprouts and obscure exotic ingredients.
Salads on restaurant menus describe the heirloom lettuces, the special varieties of tomatoes, the sweetly roasted roots. And in most places, salads can be a Picky Foodie's best friend: it is relatively easy for a chef to include or remove any offensive foods, or put things on the side.
But what about the dressing?
Salad dressings do double duty as a way to both enhance ingredients as well as hide them. In my experience, restaurants will proudly proclaim that their vinaigrette is home made, but rarely does the staff actually know what goes into it. And then there are the bottles. The bottled dressings that contain seemingly straightforward ingredients like oils and vinegars in addition to colourings, preservatives and flavourings.
A salad dressing is like a great accessory: it can transform a simple, casual salad into an elegant evening do. Unfortunately, many people rely on ready-made brands to accomplish this simple task – and yet nothing is more straightforward than making your own salad dressing. It is also the easiest, quickest and potentially most delicious way to add "healthy" into your diet.
But with everything so readily available in bottled or packaged form, why bother?
The answer is as simple as the ingredients:
A label might say "olive oil" or "vinegar" but it says nothing about their quality or provenance, whether they are the best of the best or the bottom of the barrel.
Things like "natural flavours" could mean a whole host of things – including gluten, if that brand doesn't specifically state that it is gluten-free.
And then there are the sugars, corn syrups, caramels colourings and numbered preservatives.
If you were going out on a special date, would you want someone else to choose what you were going to wear? Then why count on someone else to dress your salad when you can turn that seemingly unimportant side-note into another way of adding good fats, protein, vitamins, minerals and fibre to your meal?
Here are a few ideas:
-- the shoes: people may or may not notice them, and yet they are the foundation of your entire getup. That perfect pair of shoes can transform your look from casual to elegant almost invisibly.
Oils do the same. Whatever you use – be it walnut, flax a great olive oil or something else – these are often the base of what your dressing will taste like so it is important to use the best of what is available to you. A quality oil can provide good fats like the omega 3s in flax or walnut oil, or the virus and bacteria fighting properties found in olive oil (you know that tickling in the back of your throat when you try a really great olive oil?).
Try to stick to cold pressed and, unfiltered – just like your shoes: don't want them too shiny!
-- a really great accent piece like a clunky bracelet or a classy watch. You may have come straight from work, and your outfit might not be up to par, but this little addition will knock it out of the park.
Add some creaminess and additional nutritional punches by blending avocado, Brazil nuts or soaked cashews. Besides being famous for their fat content, these will add a surprising range of taste and nutrients to your dressings. Avocados are filled with vitamin C and K, not to mention fibre. Brazil nuts are one of the best sources of selenium, an essential mineral that is more difficult to come by these days as the soil becomes more depleted. Cashews contain iron and magnesium, amongst other things. Much in the same way many people shy away from fats, not everyone feels comfortable wearing big, bold statement pieces – but consider giving them a whirl, you might just feel incredibly liberated (not to mention nourished).
-- the never-to-be-underestimated fallback. Do you have a shirt or a pair of earrings, some cufflinks or a necklace that you always wear when you need an extra bit of luck? These are the ones that never let you down and always, always make you feel like a million bucks.
OK so sea vegetables may not be a part of your repertoire yet, but believe me, they should be! Blend some dulse in with your oil/vinegar concoction or whisk a handful of soaked arame in the mix before pouring it over your greens. Wrap a salad in a sheet of nori and you might suddenly find you've got a whole lot of extra energy, a better attitude and, who knows, that waistline may just inch a little closer to where you want it to be. Sea vegetables have been unfairly relegated to the realm of sushi. But they need not be. They are a true – to use one of those fashionable terms – superfood.
There are so many things to throw in there – ginger, garlic, mustards, nuts, vegetables -- the options are endless!
I met a woman once who, in her search for a husband, had set herself a dating quota: every month, she forced herself to go out with a certain amount of men. And if they didn't step up and ask her out, she would approach them. She was straight-out hunting and her theory was that by dating as much as she did, when Mr. Right showed up, she'd be ready. I'm not saying you should throw away all those bottles in your fridge -- what I am saying is try it. Take a little tub of your own stuff to work next Monday, add a surprising new touch to that special meal this week, splurge on a bottle of fantastic olive oil. Try adding, subtracting, experimenting and, most importantly, allow yourself to laugh if those first attempts taste a little funny.
Here's another tip: if you're not ready to jump into the deep end and start from scratch, consider sprucing up your existing bottled dressings by adding ingredients of your own.
If you're interested in finding out more, learning great dressing recipes, have questions or want to talk about this in more detail, I'm offering a special session about kitting out those salads that we all love. Simply send an email with "Dressing" in the subject line to: info@thepickyfoodie.com
One last reminder: we don't have to be in the same country to talk about how to best dress those greens!
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