While we were in New York, Andy and I had lunch at a place called Fresh & Co. It was a split-second decision guided by hunger and proximity, so I’m not sure if it’s well-known or renowned or anything. It was definitely satisfactory, though it didn’t blow me away. But I did love the concept of the salad I ordered: you picked your ingredients off of a bar (like Subway), they put them in a bowl and mixed them up, dumped them out on a cutting board and chopped it, then put it back in the bowl and tossed it with the dressing for you. It was quite a substantial salad and a fun meal.
On Friday, I attempted to recreate it at home!
Here are the greens:
lettuce, spinach, and sprouts
The veggies:
sugar snap peas, carrots, cucumber, and red bell pepper
The proteins:
hard-boiled egg, tofu, pepperoni (The tofu was so damp that it started making the pepperoni bleed, which is why it looks kind of yucky.)
Here’s all the ingredients in a bowl (the medium-sized rubber-bottomed, lidded Pampered Chef stainless steel mixing bowl, to be exact…yes, I like my bowls!)
And here’s me attempting to chop it all up:
I went back and forth between the pizza cutter and the big knife you can see at the top of the picture. The pizza cutter wasn’t quite sharp enough to get through all of the crunchy veggies, and it tended to make things spew out from behind it, but it was good in theory. This step of the process could use some perfecting; I think a bigger cutting board would be a good help!
Here’s the salad all chopped, dressed, and ready for the toss:
I whipped up a batch of my mom’s homemade vinaigrette, but you could use any type of dressing you’d like. In fact, I think this could be a really fun party food! Have everyone bring a salad ingredient and a dressing and make it a true smorgasbord.
And the final product:
It filled a big shallow pasta bowl, so it was definitely a lot of salad! We ate it with warm rolls and some cheese.
This is an easily customizable, healthy meal that was great for a warm night and a fun departure from our usual.
Have you had any fun experiential meals lately? What types of things do you tend to cook when it’s hot outside?
I’m linked up to the Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam!
