Building a better salad

Simona Paige and Sherene Renee, co-founders of Gourmet Food Company, share these salad recipes:

Chilled tofu salad with raspberry vinaigrette

This chilled tofu salad, brimming with crunchy cucumbers and green beans and tossed with a tangy Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing is a gratifying, filling, healthy meal.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium carrot, peeled
• 6 ounces green beans, trimmed and cut into 2-inch-long pieces (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 10 ounces firm tofu, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
• 2 medium scallions, thinly sliced on the bias
• 1 medium English Cucumber, cut in half lengthwise, seeded, and thinly sliced
• 1 small head butter lettuce, washed, dried, and torn into bite-size pieces (about 5 cups)
• 1/4 cup roasted, salted peanuts, coarsely chopped

1. Using a vegetable peeler, peel carrot into strips and set aside.
   
   
2. Bring a small saucepan of heavily salted water to a boil. Add green beans and cook for 2 to 3 minutes. Drain and transfer to a bowl of ice water. When beans are chilled, drain again and pat dry.
   
   
3. In a large bowl, place carrots, beans, tofu, scallions, cucumber, and lettuce. Add vinaigrette and toss until vegetables are well coated. Sprinkle peanuts over salad and serve immediately.

Chicken salad with grapes

Ingredients:

• 10 oz. chicken
  
• 1 cup of seedless grapes
  
• ½ cup nuts
  
• ½ cup mayonnaise
  
• Salt and pepper
  

1. Start by chopping up the chicken into slightly larger than ½ inch chunks. (Not mashed up the way tuna salad ends up looking.) Put the chicken into a medium size mixing bowl.
   
   
2. Rinse the grapes under cool water and let them dry. Cut the grapes in half. It is a lot easier to stab them with a fork if they are cut in half. If you have bought grapes with seeds (pips) you need to pick them out. It's a very tedious task, so be sure to buy seedless grapes.
   
   
3. Walnuts add a great texture and flavor to this salad. Add ½ cup of to the bowl. It is not necessary to chop them.
   
   
4. About ½ cup of mayonnaise will bind the salad together. Mix that in.
   
   
5. Give it a taste and see if it needs some salt and pepper. 6. Put the salad in a serving bowl and garnish with some fresh parsley and a small bunch of grapes.

Salad Nicoise has the perfect combination of foods - lettuce, tomato, green beans, hard cooked eggs, potatoes, black olives, capers and tuna fish

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs -- hard cooked
  
• 1/2 pound of small potatoes
  
• 1/2 pound of green beans - blanched
  
• 1/2 head of green lettuce - washed
  
• 1 can of tuna fish (7 ounces)
  
• 4 ounces of tomatoes
  
• 10 black olives
  2 tablespoons of capers
  Oil and vinaigrette dressing
  

1. Cook the eggs
   
   
2. Cook the potatoes (Carefully drop some small potatoes into boiling water, adding some salt. Return the water to a boil and set the timer for about 12 (to 15-18) minutes. Before you remove them from the pan, stick a fork in them to make sure they are tender)
   
   
3. Cut the potatoes into bite-size pieces
   
   
4. Blanch the green beans. "Blanching" means that you drop the green beans into a pot of boiling, salted water and let them cook for about 2 minutes. Remove them with a pair of tongs and immediately plunge them into a bowl of water with ice.
   
   
5. Assemble the salad: Be sure to wash the lettuce. Spread the lettuce out on a plate.
   
   
6. Add the rest of the ingredients in clumps. Gives it more "eye appeal" this way!

Ladies all know how a "mix and match" wardrobe can make life so much easier. With a few classic basics and you can assemble an outfit with a different look for different occasions. The same goes for "mix and match" meal salads built on foods from 5 basic categories -- greens, vegetables, fruit, lean meats & cheeses (protein) and nuts.

Salads are usually served at the beginning of a meal, but a salad can also make a healthy, low-calorie meal all by itself. When you use lots of fruits and vegetables, they can also be loaded with vitamins and antioxidants. The key to keeping salads interesting is to change the ingredients each time you make one. Don't just think of the simple garden salad, but imagine adding fruits, nuts, and lean meats to your salad to make a great low-calorie, highly nutritious meal.

Mixing and matching ingredients from 5 categories can make it easy. Just add a favorite bottled or homemade dressing and voila "dinner is served!"

Greens:

Most salads start with a pile of greens. Since greens are low in calories and are a good source of fiber, it's a great way to add volume to your meal without adding a lot of calories.

There are different varieties of lettuce, such as iceberg, leaf, spinach, escarole, romaine, or butter. The darker lettuces offer more vitamins than pale iceberg, for example. Spinach has iron, and all varieties are low in calories. One cup of shredded lettuce has about 5 to 10 calories.

Vegetables:

Almost any raw vegetable can be cut up and added to a salad. Green beans, snap peas, carrots, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, asparagus, artichokes, avocados, tomatoes, and cucumbers are all great suggestions. We need five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day, so eating a salad is a good way to meet those needs.

Brightly colored vegetables have bioflavonoids, and the dark green vegetables are lowest in calories -- about 20 calories per half cup serving.

Fruit:

Blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, apple slices and raisins add vitamins and antioxidants.

The delicious burst of flavor and sweetness they add can also help you cut back on, or eliminate, high-calories salad dressings. A half cup of apple slices has 30 calories, and a half cup of berries has about 40 calories.

Meat and Cheese: To make a meal of a salad, you may wish to add some healthy protein sources like chopped or sliced hard-boiled eggs, lean beef, cooked shrimp, tuna, chicken breast, or strips of cheese.

Make sure to measure your protein sources, since meats and cheese have more calories than fruit or vegetables. Avoid fried meats like chicken strips or battered and fried shrimp.

They contain unhealthy fats and lots of calories. A quarter cup of chopped chicken meat or one egg will add 75 calories. Half a can of tuna will add about 80 calories. Two ounces of cubed or shredded mozzarella or cheddar cheese may add up to 200 calories.

Nuts: Sprinkle a few nuts like walnuts, pecans, almonds, or cashews for a nice crunch. Just a few nuts will do, about one-eighth cup of nuts adds about 90 calories.

Walnuts are a great source of omega-3 essential fatty acids, and all of the nuts add protein and heart-healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids.