Salad Stravaganza!

One of the little side benefits to being a Daring Baker is being in the "know" about blog events that I might otherwise miss. Okay, I know about alot of them, but still miss them! With the Daring Baker's, we sometimes get reminders of some really good ones!

Like this one, hosted by Kelly and Lisa, both Daring Baker's, who are giving us bloggers the opportunity to help save our waistlines and increase our summer salad repetoire! The Salad Stravaganza!

And I actually have two salad's for this! Woot!

Okay, I have one salad that I made, and one salad that I helped my 4 year old make. :-)

Let's start with my little chef in training first.

He learned to make this at a Loblaw's cooking class, so far the only one he's been to, and was so happy with how it came out that I helped him make it again for company earlier this month.

While I cooked the pasta, tri-colored fusilli, his favorite kind of pasta, he cut up chunks of marble cheese, baby carrots and cucumbers. After adding them to his pasta, we poured on some bottled Italian dressing and he tossed it all together for a quick, kid friendly pasta salad! We served it for dinner along with a quinoa salad that I had made (the same one I made for my first Weekend Cookbook Challange,) and some lime and cilantro grilled chicken that I never did post about.

My salad is a bit more complicated, but not by much, and just as child friendly.

The recipe for it is courtesy of my cousin and his wife, and comes from their family cookbook that they received as a wedding gift, and is called Romaine Strawberry Salad.

The dressing comes together in a snap and matches nicely with the sweetness of the strawberries, the mild oniony bite of the red onions and the crispness of the romaine lettuce. Sure my kids ate around the red onions (which is why I sliced them large enough to see, rather than dice them) but they did eat all their berries and most of their romaine.

I served this salad with steaks that I had seasoned with Montreal steak spice, grilled to a medium and sliced on the bias. My husband turned the entire thing into a giant salad, and went back for seconds!

I hope my two salads contribute slightly to the grand plan of shrinking Lisa and Kelly's elbows!

Romain Strawberry Salad

1 head romaine lettuce, torn
1/2 qt strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 medium red onion, sliced

Dressing
1 tbsp poppy seeds
1/2 cup light mayonnaise (I didn't have 1/2 a cup left of light so used regular Hellmans instead)
14 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp vinegar

Whisk together the dressing ingredients and toss with the lettuce, strawberries and onions.