Mega Watt Salad

I eat a lot of salad and the one key requirement I have when it comes to making the perfect salad is that all ingredients must be CHOPPED. This makes a huge difference in taste because every bite is filled with all the flavors of the salad and...you don't look like a hog trying to choke down that over-sized piece of lettuce hanging off your lips. When I order salad at a restaurant, I always ask for a sharp knife and will spend the next 5 minutes chopping my salad into tiny bits. It's worth the wait.

I use the same backbone ingredients to all my salads which are:

-Leafy greens - either red/green leaf lettuce, romaine, spinach, arugula, herb mix or a combo of any of these

-Green, Red, Orange or Yellow Peppers (usually whatever is on sale at the time)

-Cucumber

-Celery

-Grape tomatoes (not too many)

Then I spice it up with some fun stuff. In this salad I added:

-Sticks & Twigs

-Almond Mozzarella Cheese

-Bella Sun Luci Sun Dried Tomatoes

-Avocado

-Hard Boiled Egg

And everything gets chopped and tossed into the bowl. If you eat a lot of salad and don't have a Salad Spinner, I strongly recommend one. Saves a lot of drying time and the greens stay crisp, not wilty like they can be from dabbing with a paper towel. After spinning the greens, I empty out the excess water from the salad spinner bowl and then use that as the mixing bowl.

 I add some dressing - here are some great ones by OrganicVille Dressings...

(The Sesame Goddess and Caesar are my favorite.)

I also love Bragg's Ginger Sesame Dressing. No refrigeration is required so for those with restricted diets, it's easy to carry with you when dining out or at friends' houses. I put some into a single serving bottle inside a little plastic sandwich bag for those on the go meals. LOVE all Bragg's products! (And their Liquid Aminos are a healthy, gluten free alternative to soy sauce. If you haven't tried it, add it to your grocery list. And here are some reviews if you're skeptical on taste.)

Once the salad is tossed with some dressing, I add a little fresh ground pepper and it's all ready to be devoured!

Depending on your preference here are a few other healthy toppings to add to your salad:

-Grilled chicken or fish

-Sesame Seeds

-Sunflower Seeds

-Pumpkin Seeds

-Chia Seeds

-Pepitos

-Diced Green Apples

*One last thing: For those with Systemic Candida, Bragg's makes a Candida friendly Apple Cider Vinegar. Since we have to steer clear of regular vinegars this is a fabulous find. And it's great because you can make your own pickles! Here's an excerpt from Feast without Yeast by Dr. Bruce Semon on how standard vinegars promote the growth of intestinal yeast...

"Anything which has been subjected to yeast or fungus during processing potentially has anti-bacterial chemicals. One obvious source are alcoholic beverages but there are many other such foods in the diet. The first such food is vinegar. For example, vinegar, literally spoiled wine, contains many chemicals, one of which, present in large quantity, is ethyl acetate (footnote 2). Ethyl acetate is used in industrial food processing such as bread making to keep the bacteria down without touching the yeast. This chemical kills bacteria (footnote 3) at the same time that it leaves yeast alone (3). In addition, vinegar also contains a number of toxic alcohols as well as methanol (2). These alcohols will also kill bacteria, besides being toxic to the brain. In other words, vinegar contains chemicals which are used to promote yeast growth by killing bacteria. But vinegar is present in many foods, from ketchup and mustard to salad dressing to bread. To stop intestinal yeast, one must stop eating vinegar."

**Ok one more last thing... I titled this post "Mega Watt Salad" because it's the first thing that came to my mind after I took a picture of the salad for this post. It just looked (and tasted!) mega-watted!