Super size salad

For years I've been trying to get the boy to eat salad. Salad is hands down my favorite meal to order out and the healthiest one I can think of. I'm not talking about iceberg lettuce and grated carrots with thousand Island dressing kinda salad here, I'm talking about huge meal size salads with 5-6 different crunchy veggies, nuts, dried fruit, grilled protein and homemade dressings kinda salads. Since I'm the cook in the family, he pretty much has to eat what I serve him and truth be told he rarely complains so I started serving him a small bowl each night with a balsamic vinegar that I make in the magic bullet. Really it was the balsamic dressing that he started commenting on and eventually his before dinner salads became the favorite part of his meals and now he actually complains if there is no salad. Although I love being in the kitchen and preparing my family their meals, I can honestly say that making a salad every night was mostly a chore and became a pain in the butt so I decided to make a huge one on a Sunday afternoon and see how long it would last. It lasted all week and on top of that I found some green vegetable bags at Walmart that contain important gases to make the veggies last longer. They really work and the salad stays crunchy and fresh for about 6 days. I add any of the following depending on what's fresh that week and on sale.

Romaine lettuce (I always use dark green salad)

kale,collards or mustard greens (these are great fresh but slice into ribbon size pieces)

bag of prepared coleslaw

radishes

celery

snap peas

green onion (scallions)

any color peppers

broccoli

cauliflower

fennel

carrots

and so on

I take a huge bowl and after washing and spinning all lettuces, I add that first and then proceed to clean and chop everything else.

Once done I use my hands to toss the salad before placing into the green salad bags.

For the dressing it's always different and depends what I have in the house. Steve likes good red balsamic but this week in my emptying of the pantry I only had white balsamic and lemons. I use the magic bullet (essential kitchen gadget) and fill it with

1/3 balsamic

the juice of 2 lemons

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp sea salt

2 tsp pepper

5 stalks fresh rosemary

1 tbsp dijon mustard

1/4 cup homemade jalapeno jelly (anything sweet here including 2 tbsp splenda)

Blend until creamy and keep in mind that this is a very tart dressing so you may want to play with the flavors to suit your taste