My weekly salad prep routine is quite simple – enjoy fresh salad all week!

If you are looking to purchase a salad spinner, the OXO Soft Works is the one I use.

If you’ve been reading my blog a while, or follow me on any social media platform, or are my real life friend…then you probably already know that I’m obsessed with salads. I really love a good salad (and I really really appreciate a good salad at a restaurant too – those can be tricky to find!). I’m probably not alone when I say this, but I don’t always love making salads at home. Especially lately it seems (pregnancy + salad = eh).

But pregnant or not, I’ve gotten into salad ruts plenty of times – and I always know how to get myself out of one.

Whenever I find myself in any kind of cooking rut, I feel the need to break out of my normal grocery shopping routine. I take myself to a store I don’t always visit (like Fresh Market or other gourmet grocery shops) and just find new stuff to try. When I’m in a salad rut though, I take myself straight to my favorite little produce market and immediately get inspired.

There is a family owned local market by me that’s basically set up like an indoor farmer’s market – but it’s open daily (minus Sundays). It’s run by very nice and hard working people, and I never know what I’m going to walk out with when I go there. They have the biggest variety of fresh fruit and vegetables I’ve ever seen, and great prices. It’s the kind of place where you can smell how good the tomatoes taste, and where you can find a little leftover grit from the earth on the zucchini – no waxy coating stuff here.

I seriously love this place.

(check out all this gorgeous green!)

They have a huge selection of fresh greens which immediately get me in a salad making mood. The last time I was there, I came home with a head of red leaf lettuce, a head of green leaf lettuce and a small head of radicchio (picked this one up for fun). When I got home, I immediately went to work cutting up my lettuces and putting them in my salad spinner (affiliate link – I have used the large OXO SoftWorks salad spinner for over 10 years!).

(Immediately + salad spinner = salad prep success)

Do salad spinners keep salad fresh?

Yes, salad spinners absolutely help keep salad fresh. The way the salad spinners work is that through the spinning of the greens, almost all the moisture is pulled away from the lettuce leaves. The moisture you can remove from the salad greens the longer it will stay fresh.

When you are using your salad spinner, try not to over stuff it with your greens – makes it harder to get fully dried when spinning. I like to put the greens into the basket, then into the plastic bowl and place into the sink to fill with cold water. I let it sit for a minute or two then lift and drain out the water completely from the basket before I spin. Spin your small batches a few times to get it really dry.

Whenever I’m asked “is a salad spinner worth it” I always say yes. It’s been worth it for me, I’ve owned the same salad spinner for over a decade and use it a few times a month. It works well with drying garden herbs as well.

(this was a tad overstuffed – put less in for dryer greens)

How do you keep salad fresh for a week?

To store my salad so that it stays fresh the longest – and is easy to grab – I use large Ziplock bags. I usually fill about two large bags full, then adding a folded paper towel to each bag to absorb any leftover moisture from the greens (it’s good to change out the paper towel every couple of days if you see that it’s very moist).

To seal the bag up so that it stays freshest, I make sure to squeeze out every little bit of of air I can before closing the bag up completely (do this after opening every time – it will become a habit). This is important and will keep your salad greens very fresh!

(more…)

The post Easy Weekly Salad Prep appeared first on Aggie's Kitchen.

(pictured: Spring Giardiniera)

Is it me or is cauliflower popping up EVERYWHERE right now? Just this past few weeks, I think I’ve seen a new cauliflower recipe of some sort every other day. Cauliflower is one of those veggies that I think throws people for a loop, meaning, they buy it with intentions of trying something new and delicious but usually settle for something typical like raw in a salad or veggie plate, steamed, or how I like to cook it, roasted. I think Brenda nailed it when she listed it as an up and coming food trend this year during last month’s Land O’Lakes Kitchen Conversations. And based on the comments from the giveaway post, many of you are on board with that trend too!

(pictured: Roasted Garlic and Cauliflower Flatbread Pizza)

Roasted cauliflower is actually one of my kids’ favorite vegetables, believe it or not. I’m not really sure how that happened because I don’t make it all the time, but when I do my kids are happy. I usually roast it with olive oil, salt and pepper and even a little Parmesan cheese (red pepper flakes on mine!). Sometimes I throw it in pasta. I’ve mentioned before that one of my most craved and favorite pizza at a local pizza place is their Cauliflower Pizza and to satisfy that craving (more often and more economically), I had to come up with my own at home.

(pictured: Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Broccoli and Cauliflower)

Not only is cauliflower incredibly versatile, it’s really really good for you. It’s high in vitamin C (almost as much as some citrus fruit!), folate, and dietary fiber. It’s also falls into the cancer fighting veggie family, the cruifers aka the cabbage family. (Source: Wikipedia). I think it’s safe to say that adding cauliflower to the weekly veggie rotation will benefit you and your entire family.

I’m excited about all the recipes for cauliflower I’m seeing, I wanted to share with you a few that have caught my eye and sound like a delicious new way to try cauliflower. I like when I see a vegetable becoming a “food trend”. I’m thinking cauliflower is this year’s Brussels sprout, what do you think? What’s your favorite way to cook up cauliflower?

I’m incredibly hungry after compiling this list and I have a feeling you will be too. 🙂

(more…)

The post Healthy Food Trend: Cauliflower appeared first on Aggie's Kitchen.

How many of us have a beautiful bowl full of fruit sitting on our counter…that never gets eaten?

My fruit bowl is always full. It’s overflowing usually. Depending on the season and what’s on sale you can almost always find apples, oranges, bananas, lemons, limes, tomatoes and an avocado or two. (the rest of the fruit I buy gets stored in the fridge…pears, peaches, grapes, berries, etc). I tend to go overboard when I’m in the produce department apparently.

(more…)

The post Healthy Habit: Empty The Fruit Bowl appeared first on Aggie's Kitchen.