You don't win friends with salad

maudgonner

I'd say that was a green banana and the parents told them it was a cucumber to shut them up.

meeeeh

LirW wrote: »

There is this delicious Balkan salad called "Shopska" salad. I'm wetting my pants just thinking of it, it's sooo good.
Honestly beside the obvious Cesar what people wanna sell you as a salad here is a joke. Plenty of times I got some dry leaves with a few sprinkles of some mustardy something, I don't get it.

Back home we do our salad with pumpkin seed oil and a bit of vinegar, it's the best thing ever. I'm allowed to say that because I grew up in the epitome of pumpkin seed oil. For real people need to buy more pumpkin seed oil, it's savage.

Isn't that just a version of Greek salad with a bit different cheese or oil depending where in the Balkans you are? I must admit I am not big on pumpkin oil, I much prefer olive oil.

Anyway I love salads but I would rarely have them on their own. I have them as a side to BBQ food, roast chicken, steak, sometimes fish... I absolutely dread any shop bought dressing. My favorite would be probably simple olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper dressing but it depends what kind of salad you are making. I don't overly like mayonnaise dressing but there are few salads that it works with.

judeboy101

maudgonner wrote: »

I'd say that was a green banana and the parents told them it was a cucumber to shut them up.

Bananas?? Well la di da. The only foreign food i got as a kid was from the EEC butter mountain.

endacl

xzanti wrote: »

I grew up in the 80s and had many a salad.

It usually consisted of the following:

A slice of corn beef
A slice of hang
A slice of cheese
Butter head lettuce
Beetroot from a jar
A boiled egg
Half a tomato
Some cucumber
Heinze Salad Cream

Did the job

No scallions? Not a salad without scallions.

annascott

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

This x 100!

And not even lettuce you can eat - underneath the few (relatively) nice lettuce leaves is about four inches deep of that stringy, sour, branch-y indedible stuff the name of which I don't know, but it's clearly just cheap, nasty filler. Grrrrrr!

Lambs lettuce?

indeq

Salad thread and a shed thread, some of the worst drivel I've ever seen on the site.

JupiterKid

judeboy101 wrote: »

Grew up in the 1970's/80's no such thing as salad, same goes for pizza, pasta or mayo. It's all hipster stuff.

Absolute nonsense. There was salad in the 1980s for sure. Potato salad and iceberg lettuce were very in back then. My mam used to sometimes make a Waldorf-type salad as an accompaniment to my Dad's mouthwatering barbecued steaks.

I suppose you went barefoot to school too and started work down a mineshaft 19 hours a day aged 13?

IvyTheTerrible

JupiterKid wrote: »

Absolute nonsense. There was salad in the 1980s for sure. Potato salad and iceberg lettuce were very in back then. My mam used to sometimes make a Waldorf-type salad as an accompaniment to my Dad's mouthwatering barbecued steaks.

I suppose you went barefoot to school too and started work down a mineshaft 19 hours a day aged 13?

Any time I wanted a Waldorf salad, we were out of Waldorfs...

HeidiHeidi

annascott wrote: »

Lambs lettuce?

Definitely not lamb's lettuce.

Maybe endive/chicory?

And while I was googling that I also came across radicchio... also bitter and unpleasant (or at least the stuff occupying most of a salad bowl usually is)

Cina

I do like a good salad, but ultimately it's less calories and you pay more money for them.

Places like Chopped and Sprout are a rip off considering it's 80% leaves.

No wonder obesity is becoming such an issue when it's generally much cheaper to eat unhealthy food.

meeeeh

HeidiHeidi wrote: »

Definitely not lamb's lettuce.

Maybe endive/chicory?

And while I was googling that I also came across radicchio... also bitter and unpleasant (or at least the stuff occupying most of a salad bowl usually is)

There will be nothing said against radicchio. I love it in salads with good dressing and possibly boiled egg but for those who don't like strong bitter taste it's great grilled or roasted.

tayto lover

I don't believe salad was ever meant to be a meal on it's own, just part of a meal. It's never going to fill or sustain you.
It looks nice and pleasing to the eye but the stomach has other ideas.

Shenshen

I could live on salads, to be honest.
My lunch in work is always a variety of salad I bring from home, with homemade dressing - I honestly don't get the mayonnaise-y stuff they try and pass off as dressing here, it's vile.

But a salad that's only leaves is really not going to fill you, you'd need to eat a bucketfull of that to get anywhere.
I usually mix up leaves with cucumber, tomatoes, sweetcorn, beetroot, chickpeas, mixed beans, peppers, artichokes, olives, asparagus, broccoli, green beans, mangetouts, boiled salad potatoes, couscous, quinoa, maybe some leftover roasted vegetables, whatever is at hand.
For protein I might add a boiled egg, or some diced cheddar or emmental, or halloumi, or mozzarella, or feta, whatever takes my fancy. Smoked tofu if I have some
Occasionally, I might have some leftovers from the night before, so I might add falafel, or a lentil patty, or a pasty. Or throw in some toasted nuts.
Salt, vinegar, oil as dressing is perfect, but sometimes I make a yoghurt dressing, or a spicy lemon dressing. I've been known to add a bit of lemon to some salsa I made the night before and add that as dressing.

The varieties you can create are almost endless, it's inexpensive and the main upside for me is that I can eat til I'm full without feeling sleepy and drowsy for about an hour afterwards.

But yes, if your idea of a salad is a few leaves smothered in some thick gravy-style dressing I can understand why you'd dislike them.

erica74

I love salads but like a lot of posters have said, they're easy to get very wrong.
I lost quite a lot of weight in the past 4 years and prior to that, I wouldn't have had an interest in salads.
Now, I eat salads regularly, and it's usually what I order when I go out for dinner.

People have a tendency to make dry salads because they think dressings are the work of the devil. I'd you're not enjoying your food and you're scoffing digestives later on, you might as well put the dressing on the salad and at least enjoy what you're eating.

I enjoy eating healthy food because I know how to cook it properly and to my own taste.

My favourites are pizza salad and curry chips salad.

mohawk

I enjoy salad but having said that salad can go very wrong. You need fresh ingredients and for some salads it is best to put ingredients together just before you eat it otherwise you will get a soggy mess. Dressing can have mountains of calories or barely any. Lettuce isn't a mandatory part of salad.

I enjoy chopped but it is expensive although you are stuffed to the gills after eating it. I have it as a treat.

Obviously to make your salad nice stay away from cucumber and mayonnaise