Garden Salad

Garden Salad anyone?

Here's my first actual salad on a plate from my harvest of Grand Rapids leaf lettuce that I sowed February 22nd:

As pretty as it looks, this lettuce is not what I call a hearty variety for serious crunchers like me. The leaves are extremely thin and tender. They barely hold up to a rinse under the faucet and have to be treated very gingerly .While tasty, I would have to eat three plates full to feel like I had a salad since the leaves virtually melt in your mouth. For me half the fun of eating raw is the crunch, which is why I prefer Romaine lettuce, fresh spinach or even Napa cabbage as the basis for my salads.

My home-grown does work well in sandwiches or wraps where you just need a few leaves and that's what I will be mainly using them for. I make a delicious mock/vegetarian BLT:

Wheat bread (or any whole grain) 

tiny bit of good mayonnaise (or home made variety)

bacon bits (soy chips)

a great tasting tomato like hot house or home grown 

some lettuce leaves 

little cracked black pepper and you're good to go! That's one of my favorite sandwiches and I will definitely be using my lettuce for making these.

For me summer time is all about salads and sandwiches because these days I'm more of an assembler than a cook. Living alone, I make it easy on myself. Except for the occasional pot of fresh veggie soup or pot of beans, I don't spend much time in front of the stove anymore, not like I used to when I had people to cook for.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed looking at my salad greens. It looks like it's finally stopped raining so that my plants can get some much needed sunshine.

On another note, I may get a car next month. A friend of mine called me out of the blue yesterday to tell me about her friend who's selling a Nissan Maxima for $1,000 and when I called about it this morning, the man said he's not in a hurry to sell it because I won't have all the money till next month. I don't know much about it, except that it runs. Next month, when I have all the cash, my friend Bobby-Jack will go with me to drive out there where the car is and take a look at it for me since I know nothing about cars, except that they need gas, a regular oil change and that the tires have to be properly inflated...that's about it as far as my mechanical expertise.

All I really MUST have is air conditioning because in this heat, my Gizzy and I will have a heart attack driving without!

Happy weekend, my friends!

Gizzy says "hey" and woof-woof!