My favourite salad

I once actually claimed that you can't make friends with salad, I retract that statement, you can make friends with this salad, but only if you don't put too much raw garlic in the dressing.

This might all seem really involved at first, but if you are the kind of person who does a bunch of prep for the week on one day, and then just eats that stuff all week, then this is the tasty salad for you.

I don't always make this salad the same way, I switch it up and add what ingredients I have prepared and on hand.

The different parts:

Roasted onions, Marinated mushrooms, Hard-boiled eggs, Grilled Chicken, Tofu "croutons", Lettuce, Marinated beans, Various other typical salad ingredients that you like, Dressing.

The roasted onions:

I usually do these in the toaster oven, or I pop them in in a little tray when I'm cooking something else in the big oven. They are really easy, just take a bunch of onions and take off the end bits, don't worry overly about taking off the skins because you'll probably pull off the outer layer when the onions are done cooking anyway, cut them in half and place them cut side down on the baking tray. A 9x9 or 8x8 pan is probably a good sized pan, I use the little pan from the toaster oven. If your tray is a bit sticky then you can spray some cooking oil on it or drizzle a bit in the pan, but I never do. Take some balsalmic vinegar and slosh some over the tops of the onions. We're not making soup, here, so don't go overboard, but just make sure that you get a bit on each one and that there's a bit pooled on the bottom of the pan. Also, when I cut the ends off the onions, I try to make a bit of a divot with the knife so that the vinegar can sit in there while they are cooking. Once you have all that done, put them in a 350 degree (or so) oven for a half hour or 45 minutes until the outsides of the onions have browned. Take out the tray, let it cool, then use your fingers to take off the crispy outer layer and discard it, then take the soft tasty centre, and resist the temptation to eat it right then and there, and stick it in a container in the fridge.

Marinated mushrooms:

Take a bunch of mushrooms, rinse them, cut them in quarters or sixths if the mushrooms are huge, or halves if the mushrooms are tiny. Stick the mushrooms in a tupperware and slosh some balsalmic vinegar over the top. It doesn't matter here if you put too much balsamic vinegar in the tupperware, but you aren't made out of money, so don't waste the stuff. The only mistake you could make in here is choosing a container that is too deep so the mushrooms on the top don't get any vinegar, even if you do this, you can just stir it around, or shake it up, or just pick mushrooms from the bottom and use them and then put the whole thing back for another day or two.
So, you leave the mushrooms in the fridge over night or for up to a week and by the time you use them they will be nice and soft and tasty, no cooking required. (If you have any spices you like you can toss those in as well, I have a friend who does it with white wine vinegar and lemon and dill, it's very tasty, but the theme for today is balsalmic.)

Hard-boiled egg:

If you don't know how to boil eggs, then stop reading this and go learn to cook. I boil them ahead of time and leave them in the fridge, then quarter them and toss them into the salad.

Grilled chicken:

I know Ash won't eat this, but it's good. I use the George Foreman Grill.

Tofu croutons:

My brother turned me on to these, they rock. I think they should have a cute name, ToCroutons? Anyway, take some firm tofu (if you don't have firm then you can drain it to make it firmer) and cut it into cubes 1cm X 1cm or a bit smaller. Marinate in balsalmic vinegar and any spices you like, maybe some garlic. Leave them for a day or so in the fridge. Then using a hot frying pan with a little olive or canola oil fry the suckers on each side till they are suitably crispy. You could do them in the oven too.

Lettuce:

Whatever kind you like. I like the organic mixed salad thingies you can buy at the grocery store where all the work is already done, failing that I buy romaine or something. Iceberg lettuce sucks and should be avoided at all times, feed it to your rabbit.

Marinated beans:

Use cans of mixed beans or if you are a big bean eater like me you can open several cans of your favourite beans. I usually use a can of Red Kidney, a can of White Kidney and a can of Black Beans. Empty into a colander, rinse with tap water till all the sludgy can juice is washed off. Then toss in a tupperware in the fridge with some vinegar.

Various other salady things:

If I have tomatoes, they are the top of my list. Celery, cucumber, red onion, shredded carrots, bean sprouts, alfalfa sprouts, any other sprouts, snow peas, cauliflower.... whatever you like, go nuts, knock yourself out. Speaking of nuts, slivered almonds are great on this salad and there's a study that suggests they assist in weight loss. Oh, and avocado, it's a good day for me when I have avocado in my salad. Avocado is high in calories, but it has the kind of fat in it that you should be eating, the good fat, you know like in olive oil. I know it goes brown really quickly, but try to work out a way that you only eat a quarter or a half of the avocado in a sitting, invite some friends or something, or store the rest in some lemon juice.

The dressing:

This is the culmination of all of your efforts. I use a really good high speed food processor for this one, normally I say that you can make anything with simple kitchen tools that you can with an expensive appliance, but in this case I make an exception, I like the oil really emulsified so it makes a nice thick dressing. If you aren't into that, then you can just use jar and shake it up, and chop all the solid ingredients by hand ahead of time.

The typical rule for an oil and vinegar dressing is 60% oil and 40% vinegar. I reduce the oil content by adding a few other ingredients to substitute for the oil, some of the oil substitutes add volume to the dressing, some add thickness and they all cut the bitterness of the vinegar. Any amounts I give depend on how much you are making and your taste.

Set up the food processor with the blade in it.

The first thing that goes in is the oil, a few tablespoons just to get things going. Whip the crap out of it till it gets a bit white, then toss in some of the roasted onions as a substitute for some of the oil (if you ate all the roasted onions already, don't sweat it), I also add a half to a whole head of roasted garlic at this point, if I have it (you just take the whole head of garlic cut the very top edge off, put the tiniest amount of olive oil in and wrap it in tin foil and roast it when you are doing the roasted onions), this is also when I put in a clove of raw garlic (but not if I plan to eat it at work). Process the oil, garlic and onions with the oil until the mixture is smooth. Then add some balsalmic vinegar (you can also put in a bit of lemon juice, cider vinegar, and white or red wine vinegar). Process this for a while and let it get nice and thick. Once you've done that you can start adding stock, beef stock is good, veggie stock or mushroom stock are good too. The stock is a substitute for the oil, don't add too much stock because it only adds volume and not thickness to the dressing and you don't want to water it down too much. Of course you can always just add more of the other ingredients if that happens. Taste and adjust the ingredients according to your taste. If the dressing is still too bitter and you don't want to add more of any of the other ingredients you can sprinkle in a 1/2 teaspoon of splenda or other sugar substitute. Shake in salt and pepper or just pepper, process one last time and serve. You can save the excess dressing in a jar in the fridge for a week or more, I've eaten it after a month and it was still good.

Assembly:

Take some lettuce, stick in all your other things, roasted onions, marinated mushrooms, quartered eggs, grilled chicken, to-croutons, yummy beans, all the other stuff, put it all in a container you can cover, and see through, like a big tupperware. Then take the dressing and drizzle a little bit on the salad. Then put on the cover and shake it around till the dressing gets all the way through, if you need more dressing, then add more dressing. The idea of shaking it is so that the less dressing covers more of the salad. Shake some salt and pepper on the top if you like.

I eat some variation of this salad at least 3 times a week, I never get tired of it, I just keep changing the vinegars and the ingredients. This salad and half a can of a healthy soup is the perfect meal, and you are guaranteed not to be hungry after. You can take it to work too, I usually take the lettuce in one container, the dressing in another container, and all the rest of the stuff in a third container.