Construction of a salad

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One of the threads recently asked if meals were laid out to be photographed or were actually what we are. In my case it is what I eat. I make the salad that way to start of with...

So I thought I would put together a quick guide on how today's salad was made and post up some pictures of previous dishes as well.

First of all... An empty chopping board and the items from the salad drawer... The veg is pretty much just dumped on the board, along with some leaves from one of the living lettuce and today some spinach and flowers which were in the container of water with the kale. It lasts longer that way.

PSX_20171110_124634.jpg


Grab your bowel, dish or plate... And put the wanted lettuce on one side.

PSX_20171110_124721.jpg


As I top and tail the veg and then cut to size, I add the greens to the side without the lettuce and the other coloured veg on top of the lettuce, more or less. I literally just put all the same stuff together. There's some cooked, but not pickled, beetroot in the middle. Sometimes that will be the dip or a mushroom cut into 1/8ths.
I try to cut all of the veg to roughly the same length. There's no real reason other than presentation I guess. Once everything from the salad drawer is done and in the bowl, I'll add the dip and the protein to the meal. Here I have 2 lots of protein, tofu and boiled eggs. There's a little in the hummus as well, but we are talking only 4.5g in a generous 2.5 servings, so hardly anything when your aiming for 75-100g protein a day! The tofu provides only 7.5g protein per 100g so again not much here in the 75g of so if tofu. There is more in the hard boiled eggs, 50g after peeling. Hard boiled eggs typically have 13g of protein per 100g of egg, so there's 6.5g of protein here.

I weighed and recorded all of the ingredients I added today. I actually added in a little more that usual because I woke very hungry during the night.. More protein needed! Even this meal only had 18.5g of protein! Maybe 20g if I'm generous and include the very small amounts found in some of the other items.

So

46g red grapes 32Kcals
8g spinach 2Kcals
33g snow peas 15Kcals
76g celery 12Kcals
46g carrot 19Kcals
79g cucumber 13Kcals
7g spring onion 2Kcals
33g yellow peppers 9Kcals
50g cooked beetroot 22Kcals
20g lettuce 3Kcals
25g green olives 29Kcals

Total for the veg side of life is 158Kcals

73g tofu 94Kcals
50g hard boiled egg 77Kcals

So the protein comes in at 171 Kcals

And finally the rather generous (empting of container) 2.5 servings of hummus... This one is 52Kcals per 20g, so 130Kcals for my dip. There's no other dressings so that's it.

158 + 171 + 130 = 459 Kcals for lunch and 2 snacks during the day.

Lunch... As prepared inside

PSX_20171110_124905.jpg


And outside in better light

PSX_20171110_123549.jpg
 
Lovely salads, all a meal unto themselves .. and wonderful photography ..

In Spain, a salad is considered a starter verses a main course .. One can find salads which are "main entrées" in Friday´s, VIPs, and Foster´s of Hollywood and some of the main Hotels and on the Passeo Maritimo, the car free passage overlooking the beach which is chockful of international eateries, the best of which is Japanese ..

We predominately do a small side salad after our meal as in Italy, of Rocket & Radicchio with a drizzle of Evoo and a drizzle of Balsamic Modena aged Vinegar or Champagne or Sherry Aged Vinegar ..

I prepare a Classic French Salad Niçoise from time to time, which is a meal in itself ..

Have a nice day ..
 
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..... to me a salad is something with a dressing mixed in.
I don't think I even knew what a salad dressing, or even a side salad, was before I went to Austria. We never had any dressings, unless you count a splodge of salad cream :laugh: In our house, if you had salad, it was your main meal, and you only ever had it when the various veggies were in season because Mum and Dad grew their own more often than not. We certainly never had any form of salad at school either, let alone dressing.
 
I don't think I even knew what a salad dressing, or even a side salad, was before I went to Austria. We never had any dressings, unless you count a splodge of salad cream :laugh: In our house, if you had salad, it was your main meal, and you only ever had it when the various veggies were in season because Mum and Dad grew their own more often than not. We certainly never had any form of salad at school either, let alone dressing.

Ditto really - I really don't know how it came about that salads in the UK used to be regarded as lettuce, cucumber and tomato with a dollop of salad cream - if you go back further to Victorian times and earlier salads were certainly dressed with oil and vinegar as they are today. We did have salads at school - they had grated cheese and grated carrots (the carrots did have some sort of oil and vinegar dressing and had raisins mixed in with the carrot).

The delightfully named Salmagundi goes back to Georgian times and that was dressed in oil and vinegar.
 
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The Victorians and the Georgians (and right back to the Romans*) certainly had some amazing and elaborate dishes, but I doubt they would ever be eaten or prepared by someone from a working class or peasant background in quite the same way, if at all. Some of the ingredients in their food would have been extremely expensive and hard to come by. Don't forget, when people of our age were brought up, a lot of food was on ration and many things that we now take for granted were just not available. Lard, dripping, margarine and butter were used for frying - I can't remember the first time I saw Mum use vegetable oil - and olive oil was something you used to get from the chemist's. Even something as common now as mayonnaise was "foreign" and spaghetti we only ever saw in tins, covered in tomato sauce. Maybe that was why our food was pretty plain in comparison - we just couldn't afford the ingredients even if we knew where to buy them. It's interesting though that a lot of foods that are quite expensive now used to be the staple of the "common people" in days gone by; I'm thinking shellfish now - oysters, and the like! As for fruit and vegetables, for most of the year in our house, if it didn't grow in our garden, we didn't usually have it.
*P.S. Did you know the Romans even had non-stick cookware?
 
The Victorians and the Georgians (and right back to the Romans*) certainly had some amazing and elaborate dishes, but I doubt they would ever be eaten or prepared by someone from a working class or peasant background in quite the same way, if at all. Some of the ingredients in their food would have been extremely expensive and hard to come by. Don't forget, when people of our age were brought up, a lot of food was on ration and many things that we now take for granted were just not available. Lard, dripping, margarine and butter were used for frying - I can't remember the first time I saw Mum use vegetable oil - and olive oil was something you used to get from the chemist's. Even something as common now as mayonnaise was "foreign" and spaghetti we only ever saw in tins, covered in tomato sauce. Maybe that was why our food was pretty plain in comparison - we just couldn't afford the ingredients even if we knew where to buy them. It's interesting though that a lot of foods that are quite expensive now used to be the staple of the "common people" in days gone by; I'm thinking shellfish now - oysters, and the like! As for fruit and vegetables, for most of the year in our house, if it didn't grow in our garden, we didn't usually have it.
*P.S. Did you know the Romans even had non-stick cookware?

@Elawin

If you visit Pompeii, Campania, south of Naples, one shall find a true eye opener to the Ancient Roman Empire and all their ovens still "intact" and their Pizza Ovens .. Quite an amazement ..
 
@Elawin & @ElizabethB

I have a wonderful Tour Operator Collaborator in Naples ( Prestigio Italia ) and one of his suggested itineraries is Pompeii .. He provides the tours in Italiano and English. If you are ever over this way, just let me know and I will give you the Founder´s Contact Details ..

Have a lovely evening .. and weekend ..
 
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