Salad...The Savior from Leftovers

I can’t recall, growing up, an instance when there were any leftovers from the evening’s meal as I shared a dinner table with 11 other people up until I was 10 years old, and of course after that, anything left over, my little brother and I disposed of before it could ever earn that title.  Raising my sons; cooking for them, I don’t recall there ever being much food left over, either.  They were healthy eaters and if you know them, you know that!  Later, when I found myself living alone and then, with my wife, I started to see a lot of leftover food in my/our refrigerator and it bothered me.  Having been raised with enough but never any great surplus, I had a difficult time seeing food not consumed in a timely manner; like right now. It got to the point where my woman/wife (we lived together before we were married) and I were throwing away more food than we were eating, due to the ’Leftover’ syndrome that had invaded our world.  I wanted to determine what caused the consistent pattern of having leftovers that went to waste and then it hit me…I was cooking for two but preparing enough for more because it was ingrained in me from that time when I was young and, again, when I cooked for my kids.  I’d never adapted any of my habits or recipes to accommodate a changing time and new stage of my life when I didn’t have to cook so much.  Early on, I thought that I’d be able to manage and just learn to eat lots of leftovers; save time from cooking, daily and proactively have a delicious, nutritious meal waiting for me and my wife.  Alas, she’s not keen on leftovers, too often, and only certain things like spaghetti, pot roast or, maybe, pizza, at that!  I make spaghetti about once a month, pot roast maybe about once every two months and she’s the one that makes the pizza.  We don’t have that stuff often enough to get tired of it after one day so the second day isn’t that bad.  The basic evening meals are the ones that I have to be careful where portions are concerned as food prepared the basic way is hard to have to eat, twice in a row!  Stuff like fish and chips, macaroni and cheese and meatloaf, green beans, potatoes and pork chops, beans and weenies, rice, mixed veggies and chicken; those quick, easy, evening-meal-specials that are efficient and sufficient but dull if indulged in, twice in a row.  We tried to vary the combinations but once you get a knack for certain foods going with others, it’s hard to switch stuff around and even then, there are still only so many combos that can be done before you’re completely fagged out by any configuration of them.

…AND THEN…along came the rebirth of salad and the million things that you can do with it!   

I used to think that salad was just a side-dish but not anymore.  There are enough vegetables that you can even eat raw, as to make a different meal everyday!  Do you know how many different kinds of lettuce there are?  I can’t even name them all!  Iceberg and Romaine lettuce and Spinach are my favorites but there are twice as many more that I so seldom use, that I can’t name them, off the top of my head.  Add to the leafy greens, all of the red, green, orange, yellow, purple, white and brown, raw vegetables in the joint and you got meals by the thousands. Consider the produce area in your neighborhood grocery store as your own personal laboratory and you will discover that a new meal, every day, is easy to accomplish if you let raw or cooked vegetables be the focal point of your meal.  I used to think that meat had to be the central point of your dinner but now I know; it’s the Produce that produces!  So then…let the people say!  What are your favorite meals and how do you incorporate produce into the mix?  Tonight we’re having Wok-fried Chicken Salad and the only thing that’s cooked is the chicken!