salad - Related Content

This recipe for “’Massaged’ Kale Salad with Lemon Dressing” is full of nutrients, packed with flavor and may make you into a kale lover. Even kids liked it!  It can be made ahead as the hardy leaves keep well, even with dressing.  Rubbing washed kale with a bit of salt and oil or fresh lemon juice tenderizes the greens.

In our after school cooking class in spring 2022, Tamra Dickinson and I shared these recipes with students at Hillside Elementary in La Crosse.  It was fun to watch them wash greens and spin them dry in make-shift kitchen towel salad spinners.  Mason jars of dressing ingredients were shaken with every muscle they had and we all enjoyed a spring kale salad!

A classmate used to create delicious-looking lunch salads from what was found in our college cafeteria!  To her meal of greens, veggies, nuts or seeds and she often added beans, cheese, brown rice or whole grains.  This kind of plate - mostly plant foods – is featured in a recipe for “Warm Farro Salad with Spring Veggies”.

Pay attention to spring blades of tender green “rising”; signs of resurrection.  My great-grandma picked tender dandelion greens for salad or fried them as her “spring tonic”.  Since childhood in the "old country", she had foraged for seasonal eats.  Spring greens from the wild, your garden, a Farmer’s Market or Co-op will add to this recipe for Spring Layered Salad.  According to Civil Eats, home cooking is a cornerstone of a sustainable food system!

This fall Wild Rice Salad is refreshing and full of nutrients. In this Season of Creation, Native people have much to teach about their sacred relationship to food, such as wild rice, manoomin or “good berry” and to the clean, cool water she depends upon.

A family recipe for her Mom’s Spinach Salad in the spring American Farmland Trust newsletter features spring greens we'll see soon in gardens and Farmer's Markets.   It was contributed in honor of her Mom by Stephanie Castle who manages AFT’s New York Women for the land program.   American Farmland Trust is one of the first U.S. organizations to collaborate with experts in many "fields" to address both the needs of farmers and the environment.

Seasonal transitions take time. And so seasonal eaters observe and learn what is in season...and wait.  These days, we wait until local green beans are ripe and just tender to make Three Bean Salad. When beans and other favorite seasonal foods arrive, we taste, enjoy and offer mindful gratitude.  Praise to you, for Sister Earth!

In September and October, local Apples featured in the "Fall Apple Salad" Recipe are at their peak in most of North America. For those of us who are not farmers, there are lots of markets for "pick your own" and bagged apples. This post includes a link to help you find a pick-your-own farm for apples and much more near where you live!  Read on for tips for to freezing fresh apples!