My Favorite Baby Spinach Salads

Yes..I do eat salads too, just in case you were wondering. And these are my favorites that I make quite often and they all use Baby Spinach. I usually buy a big box of organic baby spinach leaves from my grocers and make different variations of this on a daily basis. A little along with your everyday meal adds both variety and nutrition.

The first one here is a sprout and spinach and other veggies salad. I used our regular green moong daal. Wash well with water and leave in a mixing bowl with just a little water at the bottom and let it sit out covered with a lid in a corner of your kitchen for a couple of days. Take it out a couple of times, wash again and soak with fresh water. After a couple of days, you'll see these gorgeous sprouts everywhere! Sprouts offer a wide array of nutrition for our bodies. So, eat that chocolate cake and to compensate make sure you eat some sprouts with it too! Life is all about balance.

You will see a lot of the green skin come out while washing - just let it sit in there with the sprouts. That also has nutrition and that will help you make up for the donuts you had for breakfast last Sunday morning! And for the record, I did not have donuts ..its been a while now.  Just so you know.

Chop your favorite veggies to go along with the sprouts. I used fresh baby spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots. Take a big mixing bowl and just mix everything together well.

Then, add these things to your sprout salad. Some sea salt to taste, fresh ground black pepper. A little lemon juice for flavor and top off everything with raisins. That adds a little sweetness and a lot of zing to the salad. You'll love it!

Serve fresh. Its a complete and wholesome dish and makes a meal all by itself. But, I actually took this to a party where we also had a lot of pasta aka carbs. But, hey its party time.

These are my 2 other favorite salads.

Oran'ge you glad its Spinach? Salad

Baby Spinach leaves - fresh and washed well. If you have the regular big spinach leaves, just chop them into two.
Mandarin Oranges - about a couple of small oranges. I use the cuties oranges that we get here. These are really small and sweet and really cute to look at!
Red onion - chopped into small bits - about 1/4 cup
Sliced almonds - about 1/4 cup. You could carmelize these with 1/2 tsp of sugar and then add them in here. That little caramelizing crisps the almonds and kicks up the taste many notches!
1-2 tbsp of orange juice (optional) - I use this instead of adding a dressing to the salad. Lower in calories compared to a salad dressing. You can skip this and add any other dressing you'd like. Suggested dressing would be a low-fat italian dressing. Works well with the taste of mandarin oranges.

Just mix everything well and serve immediately.

Crunchy and Berry Good Salad

This salad again is a simple and easy salad. 

Baby Spinach leaves - a bunch
Fresh strawberries - about 4-5 sliced
Cucumbers - chopped - about 1/2 cup
Store bought baked low fat croutons - about 1/2 cup
Salad dressing - I add 1tsp of low fat Ranch and 1 tsp of low fat Italian

Mix everything well. Add sea salt to taste if needed. Add fresh ground black pepper. Serve immediately. You can also add chopped walnuts to this salad - tastes like the Gods came down from heaven with this salad!

Enjoy eating healthy. Eat healthy most of the time but do have your chocolate cake once in a while. Makes your soul feel good. These healthy foods feed your body - the chocolate feeds your soul.

Before I go, here's something I want to share with you guys. A lot of you are probably already fans of this new blog now - but for the others, here's a little intro on Meet My Kitchen Things.

This is a blog that was created by a very talented Nags of Edible Kitchen. She wanted to host a space that talks about all the instruments and gadgets widely used in kitchens around the world. These includes everything from Sporks and spoons to cookbooks to heavy duty stuff. If you haven't visited her space yet, do visit and leave your comments on there. If you are a blogger or not but would like to share what you cook with, please send her the information and she'll be glad to update the blog with your input ( I volunteer you whole- heartedly Nags!)

Enjoy! Peace out!