What do you put in your salad?

Avocado, shredded swiss cheese and shredded ham

Chicken, chopped apple, raisins

Mandarin orange sections, chopped green and red peppers

Crumbled bleu cheese

dried cranberries...

grapes!

I love grapes in a salad!
They go with walnuts too.

I like to freeze my grapes and eat 'em as a snack while I'm working.

they last longer frozen...

Greek salad, with tomatoes, green/red/yellow bell peppers (some or all), red onion, cucumbers, crumbled or cubed feta cheese, kalamata olives and either bottled greek salad dressing or this homemade vinaigrette, courtesy of Ina Garten:

For the vinaigrette:
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup good red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup good olive oil

Cucumber salad.

Slice cucumbers into thin slices. Layer in a bowl, salting each layer. Place another bowl overtop and weight it down so the cucumbers are compressed. Refrigerate overnight. Rinse the wilted cucumbers well to remove the salt and squeeze them in paper towels to remove the moisture. Add pepper and vinegarto the wilted cucumbrs and let them marinate for a while.

This out of this world recipe is courtesy of a dude I knew from one of the Star Trek forums. So thanks, Jeff, wherever you are.

Kiwi salsa

3 kiwis, peeled and diced, fairly fine
dash of salt
squeeze of lime juice
however much chopped or torn fresh cilantro you feel like (precision is not my strong suit with this)
either 3 large tomatoes, chopped fairly fine, or a can of low salt diced tomatoes with the liquid from the can
3 jalapenos, chopped fairly fine, with some of the seeds but not all (more seeds = hotter; adjust according to how much heat you want)
one large white or Vidalia onion, rough chopped

Combine, toss and set aside, preferably overnight.

I've added a rough chopped red pepper to this on occasion - it's nice but not necessary. When there haven't been any kiwis, mangoes have been a reasonable substitute but pears have not. Haven't tried peaches if the preferred fruits are AWOL, but might.

It's good on, well, lotsa things.

I usually double the recipe and make two decent-sized Tupperware containers at a time. The second one we get to during the week tends to be a little soupier as the acid from the lime juice starts to break down the bits o' kiwi and tomato and I think it's more kick-bun awesome then.

So many good recipes, it's hard to keep up!

By any chance, does anyone have yummy recipes for chile de arbol salsa?

That's very similar to a salsa recipe I use except avocado is the green fruit. I'm gonna have to try this kiwi thang. Sounds delish.

Jespah, thanks for the kiwi salsa recipe. It sounds so good. I'm trying it this weekend as soon as I can get to the grocery store.

I've hated iceberg so long that I'm about to like it again.

On salads mentions so far, all of them sound great to me. Except maybe, Peep, I didn't just jump to love the one in that photo - not that I couldn't like it tossed..

I agree pretty much with Chai on this. Whatever leaves I have, whatever is interesting in the refrigerator or cupboard, maybe whatever looked good at the store that week, and sometimes my osso will kill only herself with these clean vegies she puts in leftover juice from any of the Mezzetta olives, or olive bar olives. I tend to go for simple, including with potato salad, using oil and vinegar dressing for that, varying the vinegars. On what goes on what salad - some items make sense together to me. Sometimes add mustard to the dressing, or garlic, or lots of pepper, or smidge of .. who knows, mebbe a little curry.

Back in CA I'd use homegrown herbs a lot of the year, but here grocery store herbs are a luxury. I use a lot of parsley in season and try to grow parsley, thyme, basil along with my stalwart rosemary plant that I manage not to kill with lack of attention.

Dressing snob that I am, have only bought bottled dressing once in at least twenty years - a creamy poppy seed thing which was ok.

Last time Diane and Roger and I went to the Flying Star, I ordered a salad. The server told me about a bunch of dressings and I asked, do you have just oil and vinegar? Yep. Boy, was I happy - she brought olive oil and a brand new unopened bottle of balsamic, and a little contain to mix them in. I knew I liked that place.

One thing I follow a recipe for is coleslaw - that is, I use Panzade's Cole Slaw dressing, which he worked up to be like KFC's. What I put in with the sliced cabbage is subject to change.

Panzade's recipe:
http://able2know.org/topic/163316-1

Something I've found delicious but haven't tried to make -

from the Indigo Crow restaurant in Albuquerque -

Grilled Romaine
Hearts of romaine, lightly grilled, topped with gorgonzola cheese, oven dried tomatoes, and vodka vinaigrette.

In memory, the last three were all blended, but it's been a while.

Tonight I'm fixing a Strawberry Chicken salad. Spring greens, pieces of roasted chicken breast, fresh sliced strawberries, feta cheese crumbles, and glazed walnuts with a strawberry balsamic dressing.

My invention, and we love it.