Sumptuous Salad

I feel a little silly posting about an item so mundane as your everyday garden-variety (ha ha) salad. But since this is my near-daily lunch that I never tire of, there must be some taste-trickers hidden between the layers of all those good-for-you veggies. When I lived in New York, I would brown-bag my lunch and eat it in a local park. And I kid you not, I would be interrupted again and again by passersby asking me where I purchased that delicious-looking salad.

I suppose I could have opened a mobile salad cart and made a killing; instead, I'm sharing my tips with you. I think the secret lies in the colorful, flavorful, and textural blend of ingredients. In fact, that's often how I choose which ingredients to use.

I always have:

- red- or green-leaf lettuce

- broccoli or cauliflower

- grape tomatoes

- carrots

- radishes

- sunflower or pumpkin seeds (they add texture, crunch, and fat to keep you satisfied)

- kalamata and garlic-stuffed green olives (again for fat)

- cheese for protein (usually crumbled feta)

- beans or legumes for protein (usually kidney, sometimes garbanzo, occasionally sweet peas)

And then there's the fun stuff:

- fruit (fresh sliced kumquats, canned mandarin slices, fresh blueberries, dried cranberries, raisins, apple or pear chunks)

- juicy (pickled beets, roasted red peppers, marinated mushrooms, canned asparagus tips, avocado chunks)

- extra crunch (sliced cucumber, jicama, celery, nuts)

The beauty is that the more juicy, tasty things you add, the less likely you are to need salad dressing (which of course saves calories). Though chopping and peeling and dicing can be a pain, I typically prepare as many of the ingredients as possible in advance Sunday night or Monday morning (wash and spin the lettuce, peel and slice the carrots, trim the radishes, drain the beans, slice the jicama) so that making a salad every day to take to work is a snap. It's so easy, in fact, that hubby is even in on the game: I make salads for us both one week, he makes them the next. Bringing my own salad also means that I can devote an entire hour to my lunch—no time spent waiting in line with everyone else at the greasy spoon du jour.