Thrown Together Salad

Salad is one of my favorite foods. We eat a lot of salad in our house because it is just so easy. However easy isn't salads only attractive trait. Salad is also SO versatile. You can throw together a salad with the most basic ingredients. We love to just pull things out of our fridge and see what we get.

My friend Holly, over at Jesse's Girls, has started a series of sorts called "Salad for Studs" where they are highlighting some of their favorite healthy and filling salad recipes.

Phil and I started by making their Barley Romaine Salad. Romaine is our favorite lettuce to use so we already had it on hand. Actually the only ingredient we had to purchase for this salad was the barley and an avocado (wish we lived in a place where I could just go pick one of these off a tree but we don't).

This week we tried our hand at our own "Salad for Studs" (plus red meat, which may disqualify it from being a salad for those watching their weight). Our good friends, Dan and Vicky, came over and we all brought our favorite salad ingredients from the fridge and pantry. We ended up with quite a lot: Romaine, Spinach, sugar pears, craisins, sunflower seeds, green peppers, yellow and red peppers, purple onion, homemade croutons, freshly ground black pepper, tomatoes, cilantro, zucchini, yellow squash, lemon juice, and olive oil. We topped our salads with a few pieces of steak and dug in!

It was delicious and fun! My challenge to you is to try something new atop your bed of lettuce. Dig through your pantry, head out to your farmers market or your own garden and see what you come up with. Or head over to Holly's site and try a few of her other recipes!