Basic Basic Cooking: Salad

Everyone starts somewhere, but if you've never given much thought to preparing food, it can be hard to know where to start when you want to begin feeding yourself and others well.

Let's start with a salad. It's good to eat a salad every day. If you fix one, and then you prepare some other dish with some protein in it, you've made an entire dinner.

So go to the produce section and buy a package of romaine lettuce. Romaine is a sweet, crunchy, sturdy lettuce. It doesn't melt under dressing, and it has a lot of flavor without being bitter. The "hearts" are the lettuce heads with the outer leaves removed. The hearts are the tastiest part of the lettuce. You can also buy a single head of romaine, not a package of hearts.

Pull off as many leaves as you think you want to eat, and tear them into bite-sized pieces. Put them into a colander or a salad spinner. Wash the pieces well by running a lot of cold water over them while you lift and stir them with your hand, then dry them by spinning your salad spinner (yes, you want one if you're going to be a salad-making-and-eating person), or by putting them in a clean dish cloth and swinging it around over the kitchen sink. See, I told you you want the spinner.


Now make the dressing. It's nice to have a small jar set aside for this, but you can also use a glass or a mug. You need some extra-virgin olive oil (find this with the other oils at the grocery store), and some balsamic vinegar. The vinegar is often sold alongside the salad dressings or the pickles. There are lots of kinds of vinegar. Find the balsamic. It doesn't have to be the most expensive. This is the one we like the best--'Balsamic Vinegar of Modena'. The third ingredient is this salt blend called Jane's Krazy Mixed-Up Salt. It's sold on the spice aisle, usually near the regular salt. If you can't find it, pick out some other salt blend.

In your jar, pour about 3/4 inch of oil. Then almost as much vinegar. They won't mix. Now add about half a teaspoon of the salt. When you're ready to dress the salad, either put the lid on tightly and shake the dressing, or use a fork to vigorously stir if you're mixing it in a glass. This will make enough dressing for several days of small salads. No use in doing the work every day if you don't have to--just cover the dressing and keep it out on the counter for several days, shaking again before using.


When you're ready to sit down, pour what you think is enough dressing on your salad. You'll quickly learn by trial and error how much you want to use.


That's it. You've made something delicious and entirely lacking in corn syrup or preservatives. Now you cook.