Healthy Eats from the Garden

Our recent flexitarian route has led me to try new recipes that are well balanced meals. By the way, flexitarian is my latest new vocabulary word. It means someone that eats mostly vegetables but fudges occassionally. It's so much nicer than almost vegetarian or somewhat vegetarian. The other night, I was attempting to create a meal using the garden. Since we didn't plant lettuce, that's always purchased. This time we had a blend of spring mix and baby spinach, but spring mix can substitute for the combo.

Supper Salad

Mix the following ingredients.

A large handful of spring mix or 50 percent blend salad
1 finely chopped flourette of cauliflower
1/2 stalk celery
4 golden sweet cherry tomatoes
4 lime basal leaves
2 lemon balm leaves
The chopped leaves of a sprig of lemon thyme
The chopped leaves of a sprig of regular thyme
Four stalks of chopped chives
1 1/4 inch slice of vadalia onion finely chopped
A handful of walnuts
8 deep purple sweet grapes sliced in quarters
6 blackberries (the sweeter the better)
2 baby carrots chopped
1/2 small green pepper chopped

Top the salad with a small handful of grated Mexican cheese and then drizzle with balsamic vinegrette.

Serve this with a side of fresh red tomato slices mixed with sliced onions and cucumbers topped with a vinegrette and sprinkled with parsley.

While the taste may not be what every meat eater dreams about. It was amazingly good and very sweet, something I love. The extra herbs also packed a whopping amount of additional nutrients to the salad and made each bite interesting. One particularly notable bite had a lemon balm chunk and brought the delicious lemony flavor alive in my mouth. Of course, you can tell how eventful my life is by the fact that the burst of lemon was notable. (Sigh)