Come Grow With Us: Salad, Salad, Salad!

. . . Okay, I can't wait any longer . . . I can't wait to show you the progress. I've named this Aerogarden: "Mes Cheri".

How does your garden grow?
With romaine lettuce and buttercrunch, and pretty kale, all in a row.

Why did I plant this combination? (Besides that I thought it would be so beautiful?) Well, I'm a huge salad lover. I'm going to give you my favorite salad recipe of all time in a minute, given me by one of my dear friends, Cheri Soelberg. (Hence the garden's name.)

Even my son, Collin, (twitter.com/collinkartchner) (whose go-to breakfast is Lucky Charms, not green smoothies) asks for this salad. I think it is nature's answer to Sweet Tarts. By the way, Collin's tweets make over two thousand twitter followers laugh every single day, so if you need more smiles in your day, check him out!

But before I give you this recipe, can I tell you happy I am that I am NOT going to be throwing away ANY lettuce for the next three months? As much as I know about the importance of eating living food, too often pricey organic produce wilts and browns in the so called "crisper" drawer of my fridge.

Face it. Life is BUSY! And most of our food has been cut from the vine 4 to 5 weeks before we even buy it at the store. So a lot gets wasted. But no more; Aerogarden to the rescue!
I'll pick my salad; then I'm not even going to wash it, because I know I'm not using pesticides;
and then eat it!

This is a 15 second, time release stop action video clip from You Tube. You are going to be amazed at the growth of this lettuce that is flooded with oxygen in the AeroGarden, versus the lettuce that is sitting in high quality potting soil, it's roots struggling to breathe. You might have to watch it twice; it goes so fast.

You can see that by day 16 I'm going to have to start "pruning" my lettuce plants . . .in other words, eating that lettuce. You can strip off up to 1/3 of the outer leaves and keep a healthy productive plant that will keep on giving you lettuce leaves for three months before the plants get too old and grow bitter, and you start a new batch.

The thing I love about this little experiment is that BOTH sets of plants are getting the EXACT same amount of measured light; both are sitting in the same room exposed to the same temperature. The major difference is the amount of oxygen and the nutrients the plants are getting.

Now, here is the recipe for the most delicious salad in the world. This is a favorite from a favorite friend, Cheri. Her son is one of the best chefs in Utah and owns two amazing restauraunts, Communal, and Pizzeria 712. Colton Soelberg only uses the freshest, most locally grown food.

His food is amazing! http://heirloomrestaurantgroup.com/blog/.

Mes Ami Cheri's Salad

4/5 bowl washed, torn dark green leaf lettuce (like romaine and buttercrunch)
1/5 bowl thinly sliced Lacinado Kale shreds
one tart organic green apple, seeded, unpeeled, diced into bite size pieces
one sweet organic pear, seeded, unpeeled, diced
one handful of dried cranberries or Craisins
one avocado, peeled, pitted, chunked
1/2 cup of toasted walnuts

Dressing:

2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup Bragg's vinegar
2 T good quality Dijon mustard (Cheri says " A plop of good dijon")
dash of sea salt
dash of shoyu or tamari
1/8 to 1/4 cup Agave nectar

Cheri's naturally skinny and I am naturally not, so I substitue 1 dropper full of Nu Naturals Vanilla Stevia for the agave, as it doesn't spike my blood sugar level and tell my body to store fat.
You can tell from the photo I also add carrot shreds for color.