Crisp salad, every time! Prewash your own salad.

You will need:

Your prefered salad leaves

Herbs you enjoy

A salad spinner, for crisp veggies.

Vegetable washing solution

• (try 1tablespoon lemon juice, 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar, and 1 cup cold water in a spray bottle. There are other varriants of vinegar, lemon juice, and basking soda wash recipies available on the net.)

Procedure:

1. Wash

• Spray the leafy veg with your vegetable wash.
• leave for 3-5 min
• rinse off or soak (if carrots or potatoes, they take a while)
• let drain in a colander for 1-2 min.

2. Spin

• When the cleaning agent has been washed off, place your leaves in a salad spinner and spin.
• This is crucial for good salad, the veg will absorb the excess water that doesnt drip off and will be soggy if you dont spin it.

3. Chill & Store

• Line a container with a paper towel (use PET plastic or PET density varriants, glass or BPA free plastic please, unless you want plastic toxins and chemicals seeping into your food)
• Keep chilled in your refridgerator's crisper (the bottom pull out bin).

It should keep a week. and you took care of the hassle ahead of time.

And thats it, easy 1-2-3 your own stock of nutritional veg, waiting for mealtimes. Just take the hassle out of the way ahead of time.

Be sure to use unwashed, fresh, loose (non-vaccum sealed) packed leafy veggies. Usualy i wash a couple packages at the same time, since its just Mr. Catfish and I this lasts us a week to a week and a half. You can definitely adjust this amount to three packages (for 3-4 people, 2 salads a day for 3-5days) or five (for 6 people and above 2 salads a day for 3 days). The amount you make really depends on how much your family or guests like salad.

I like leafy lettuce and aragula, if i'm bored with it i add some fresh basil or rosemary to the wash bin. You can serve it as is leaves and herb with some dressing or add more veg to it. Sometimes I add cucumber, olives and capers or onions to it before serving. Try your own combo of leaves and herbs and tell us about it!

Check out making your own salad dressing.

SM Organics

Stumbling into SM supermarket's organic section was a pleasant surprise. SM organics are priced well for organics and depending on the item it can be anywhere from a third to half the price of its counter part at Rustance fresh. Rustance produce keeps longer and is isn't as shocked by the change of temperatures during transport. Some of my SM organic section purchases have had a bit of spoiling or partial softening, but you can cut it right off and keep the extra savings.

They have carrots, cucumber (both white and green, the white is just a bit sweeter and crisper), bell peppers, celery, cherry tomatoes, squash cabbage, chinese cabbage, broccoli, baby corn, and lemon grass. The produce is affordably priced - the baby corn and squash is at just 17 pesos, two pieces of carrots or a bundle of celery is 20 plus pesos, a bundle of three cucumbers of either variety is 50 pesos and so on.

There is a bit more than that, but off the top of my head thats what I remember. There are herbs and bagged salad leaves right after it. Don't get tricked by bagged salads though! (more on this in the next post). There are several publications that have discussed the "dirty dozen" and its clean counterparts. Most of the dirty dozen is made available at the SM grocery stores.

Check out the dirty dozen.