On Salads

I used to be a big salad eater. At least a few times a week I would eat a salad for lunch, and almost every night would have a small salad with dinner. For the past two or three years though, I've been really anti-salad....hence the creation of my "snack" boxes with raw vegetables. I've realized that my aversion to salads is all about the dressing. I'm so sick of Italian and balsamic vinaigrette and don't really eat creamy dressings.

Well, guess what? I've eaten a salad 3 days in a row! The first was at Tom's (second) birthday dinner on Monday at the Franklin. Chicory salad with sqaush, apples and honey-thyme vinaigrette:

I ate it with some salmon tartare.

Side note: how good did Tom's burger look?

On Tuesday at trivia I ordered a cup of turkey chili and a garden salad, which was an enormous plate of mesculin greens, cucumbers, tomatoes and onions. Surprisingly, I wasn't hating it.

Yesterday I went grocery shopping at the gym and decided to grab a small salad to eat with dinner from the salad bar. Very simple:

I had it with a bowl of much craved pasta:

I'm going to try to incorporate salads back into my life. I think the few keys are: find dressings I don't hate and use them lightly, go heavy on the raw veggies I like (cucumbers, tomatoes, snap peas, etc.) and pair them with something else. I hate having a salad as a meal.