New favorite salad

Don't tell the locavores, but I've got a new favorite salad. I'm still tossing baby greens in O Organic blood orange infused olive oil, but I'm now adding chopped toasted hazlenuts and chunks of organic Gala or McIntosh apples (when available) instead of cheese and tomatoes. I'll also sprinkle on some goat cheese when it's around (I've run out). The apples and the citrus oil are such a good combination. And the organic grains bread from Provence goes well with this salad. It goes well with everything, though.

Business Lunch

When I first became a vegetarian in 2000, I worked for a large manufacturing company based in the meat-and-potatoes Midwest. So business dinners and lunches (particularly when visiting company headquarters) could be a real challenge. I mean, just because I'm a vegetarian doesn't mean that I want to eat a salad at every meal. But I've had to suffer through eating a large plate of asparagus accompanied with bread at Ruth's Chris (it was good, though), eating cheesestick appetizers as a meal and, of course, eating mediocre iceberg lettuce salads at more places than I can think of.

My current job is based on the gulf coast of northwest Florida, a place that has great seafood but lacks a wide selection of restaurants that include thoughtful vegetarian selections. Likely because the people who visit locally-owned restaurants are looking for fresh seafood, so I can't blame them. Supply, demand, all that. Yet another reason I like staying in a condo and preparing all my food from what I buy in the Greenwise section from Publix.

Inevitably, though, I have lunch meetings down here and I have to balance my desire to have something other than a salad with my desire not to be a wet blanket on co-workers and business associates who don't really care to go to McAllister's or Panera. I once really liked the Donut Hole's egg salad sandwich, but I'm trying to really cut back on eggs (and mayonnaise), so I didn't have a good suggestion for lunch today. Just that we not go to a specifically seafood restaurant. So we ended up at Pineapple Willy's in Panama City Beach.

Funny, I haven't been to Pineapple Willy's since the summer of 1983 when my family stayed the one and only time at Pier 99 (since gone and replaced with a high-rise condo, Shores of Panama--this is a good thing; Pier 99 was a dump). I remembered liking the place then and it is very kid-friendly. But not terribly vegetarian-friendly. There were exactly two meat-free items on the menu, from what I could tell. Onion rings and a "house salad." So guess what I had for lunch. Iceberg lettuce, a few cherry tomatoes (better than sliced large tomatoes), a few cucumbers (oh hey, that's a nice bonus), shredded cheese, onion and bell pepper (which, fortunately was easy to remove) and croutons. A fairly bland and unexciting salad. But they did serve Newman's Own balsamic vinaigrette dressing, so that helped. It just would have been nice to have something a little more interesting.

Oh, and I totally got the Vidalia onion rings. They were pretty tasty. But, you know, a roasted portobello mushroom sandwich woulda been nice for lunch. Eh.

Pomango!

As I've mentioned before, I don't like store-bought salad dressings. But I can't go this entire week without eating some salad, so I perused the selection of dressings in the Greenwise section of the local Publix and found this Naturally Fresh Pomango Dressing. This dressing and the market lettuces salad I had at Marche for brunch this past Sunday inspired me to do a little something different with my salad while I'm away from home this week.

So tonight's salad had a base of baby romaine lettuce tossed with the Pomango dressing and topped with walnuts, slices of golden delicious apple, and gorgonzola cheese. Fortunately, this was a combination that worked thanks in large part to the Pomango dressing which is light (not oily) and citrusy without being overly sweet or tart. So, in short, Naturally Fresh Pomango Dressing = thumbs up for a light, citrusy and slightly sweet salad (with fruit, nuts and light, soft cheeses).

Monday

I had a fairly busy day, so I didn't do a lot of boredom snacking. I started off with the banana and had about a cup of blueberries for my mid-morning snack. For lunch, it was my favorite at-home salad.

A few words about salad. For years, I thought I hated salad. I don't hate salad. I hate salad dressing. Oh, and I'm not a huge fan of iceberg lettuce. So once I was out on my own and had enough money to buy premium lettuce, I discovered that salad can taste good. Here are the components of my salad:
• Earthbound Farms Organic Baby Romaine (or Baby Lettuces)
• A drizzle of O Olive Oil infused with blood orange
• some fresh ground pepper
• a sprinkle of Sargento 4 Cheese Mexican Blend shredded cheese (which doubles as my cheese of choice in burritoes)
• a handful of organic grape or cherry tomatoes

I eat the salad with a slice of Provence Organic Grains bread. For those of you wondering, the cheese and the whole grain bread provide plenty of protein for the meal. And buying good whole grain bread can be tricky (not all of them taste good), so that's why I stick with Provence (a local bakery here in Nashville). It's important to eat whole grain breads because white bread is just a waste of space and calories as far as anything in your body is concerned (past your tongue, that is).

I generally crave something sweet not long after eating this salad, so I ate a fresh peach that had been ripening for a few days in a brown paper sack.

For dinner, I needed to finish off a few Roma tomatoes, so I decided to make a pasta sauce. I must admit I apparently inherited at least some of my cooking ability from my great-grandmother because I rarely use a recipe. But here's a description: I slice and chop the tomatoes, add them to a hot skillet of olive oil (regular, not extra virgin), add in some crushed garlic, dried rosemary, dried oregano, freshly ground pepper and sea salt and then cook on about medium heat. Sometimes, I just barely warm the tomatoes (when I want a chunky, fresh sauce) and other times, I let it stew for a while so it's a little pasty. Tonight, I went for pasty and spread it over some whole wheat (never white!) rotini pasta. As with bread, whole grain pasta is a lot healthier and heartier than refined white pasta. I'd already hungry again if I'd used standard pasta.

The water today here in Nashville tasted like my mom's pool (lightly chlorinated) instead of a pond. It's a slight improvement and definitely a reminder to change out the water filter on the kitchen faucet.