Recipe Round-Up Week 14

When my husband and I first got married and eating every meal together, we decided I'd be in charge of dinner every night.  At the time I had both more time on my hands (jobless for the summer) and more of an affinity for food than him, so it seemed like a natural fit.  His one request was that we have a salad for dinner every once in a while.  At the time, this seemed absolutely crazy to me.  Really??  Only a salad for dinner?  In the home I grew up this rarely, if ever, happened.  Salads were a side dish only and usually optional.  A complete paradigm shift for me.  Plus, with my (albeit minimal) experience with salads, I'd determined that I did not like salads in general.  (Looking back I can see this is obviously a crazy generalization - salad recipes are about as varied as it gets.)

Welp, with only that one request from my new husband, I set out to find a salad that both of us could enjoy for dinner that week.  I searched through every cookbook I'd brought in the marriage and finally found one that seemed like a good "compromise" ... not too salad-y, meaning lots of fruit.  Long story short, it was a complete flop.  Turns out the one thing he doesn't like in a salad is fruit.  

Four years later I'm proud to announce I have made miles of progress in the liking salads department.  I've found many salads that I enjoy eating regularly, a few of which are listed below for you.  One of the turning points for me was learning about homemade dressings.  I'll eat just about any salad dressed with a dressing I've made from scratch.  All of these fit in to that category.  There's a tip for those of you with picky-eaters in the house.  Have them prepare the food along with you!  I started eating a lot more varied foods when I prepared them myself and could see the "building blocks" of previously mysterious sauces, dressings, etc. 

Enjoy!

Apple and Spiced Pecan Salad

Grilled Chicken & Berry Salad

And one bonus recipe - who doesn't love soup with their salad?  And because I still have a hard time eating ONLY salad for dinner...  Turns out it's just as hard to write a post with ONLY salad recipes.

Chicken Corn Chowder