Outside of the Box: Salads with Whole Grains

I love teaching cooking classes. It's the best of both worlds. I love food. So talking about food, good real food, cooking food, and then feeding an eager crowd - score! Today, I showed a lively group how amazing salads can be.

On the menu: 

- Wheat Berry Spinach Salad (A bed of spinach leaves, wheat berries, red bell peppers, Feta cheese, sliced almonds). By adding the wheat berries, red bell pepper, and almonds the salad is naturally crunchy so replacing the desire for highly caloric, nutrient deprived croutons.
- Chopped salad (Bed of romaine lettuce, tricolor quinoa, blanched asparagus, cucumbers, mushrooms, red onion, grape tomatoes, black olives, and mozzarella cheese).  All the fresh vegetables give this salad a crunch and adding the quinoa gives it a boost of plant based protein.
   
The consensus among the group, the made from scratch lemon vinaigrette and honey mustard dressing elevated the wow factor. I loved hearing them ooh and aah with each bite. I loved how by the end of class they were all thinking OUTSIDE of the Box: They were chatting about ways they could tweak the salads for their loved ones or how excited they were to share the salads with coworkers at their upcoming potluck. Just like that another group -- Outside of the Box!


Doing what I love, loving what I do!