After the chocolate....

Oh, my!  Have you been surrounded by chocolate in recent days?  What's a body to do, anyway?  How can one say, "No!" to chocolate?

Perhaps it's time to make a change in our meal plan to help correct some of the negative of that indulgence.  Is it salad time for anyone?

Now, everyone most likely has worked out this salad thing already.  Just in case you haven't, here is a step-by-step guide to salad at our house!

First, I started with this package of organic Romaine hearts.  Notice the instruction on the bag says that we are to "wash before eating."  That refers to the lettuce inside, though it also applies to YOU if you have been working at something that has rendered your hands unclean!

Then, I placed the Romaine on a cutting board (oops! not a good idea to touch lettuce with a knife as it hastens browning of the lettuce) and cut it crosswise.

Next, I plopped it into this handy dandy salad spinner!  How many of you have one of these?  Turn on the spigot, and add water to the Romaine in the spinner.

It has this nice push top that spins the inner bowl, swirling off the water that you have run into the spinner!  That water gathers in the bottom of the clear plastic bowl, and when you lift out the spinner, the water can be poured down the drain!  Do the spinning process again, if the lettuce isn't as dry as you prefer.

There!  That looks just about right!

One head from the package of three was just enough to divide between these two bowls!  Now what?  Well, toppings, of course!

On this particular salad, I chose the goat cheese, saving the other varieties for another day.  I sliced some organic mini-peppers (love these!), added some walnuts and cranberries, then topped with some rotisserie chicken breast! 

"Where's the dressing?" you may be asking.  I am actually able to eat a salad without any dressing drizzled over the top.  On some occasions, I will simply drizzle a little olive oil over all of it, and sometimes I will dip the lettuce into some balsamic vinaigrette, honey mustard, ranch, or whatever is on hand.

This lettuce lends itself to many salad variations.  Adding shaved Parmesan, some Caesar croutons, and a good Caesar dressing on the side gives a tasty salad!  How yummy a Greek salad would be!  Then, there's the usual garden salad with wonderful grape tomatoes and radishes!  Toppings could be avocado, chicken, tuna, shrimp....the possibilities are endless! 

What is your favorite salad?