Rainbow spring salad with orange dressing
If someone told me yesterday that it was Spring I would have laughed. Still dressed up in my very warm winter jacket and boots, I made it to the Whole Foods market to buy some fresh ingredients for my Sunday salad. The first thing I put into my shopping basket were edible flowers from Spring Thyme Herb Farm. And maybe there was some magic in the very act of buying edible flowers because the day is so much nicer today, even if it is just as cold as it was yesterday. But at least, the sun is shining...
This simple, but tasty spring salad is designed to help you detox your liver. The bitter greens and peppery nasturtiums help produce bile and enhance digestion. Betaine from beets helps you reduce homocysteine levels in the body and protect your liver from liver disease.
As always, this recipe was created to inspire your own creativity. You can use any lettuce you like or are able to buy at this time of the year. If you are a vegan you will have to skip the yogurt dressing and make an orange vinaigrette instead. Simply whisk orange juice with virgin olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Add a little raw honey if you like.
Ingredients:
- baby arugula
- watercress
- lamb's lettuce
- edible flowers
- 1 small beet
- freshly squeezed juice of 1/2 orange
- virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp raw honey
- raw milk yogurt (use vegan alternative if you prefer)
- organic sea salt
- freshly grind black pepper
Method:
- Wash and clean the greens and place in a salad bowl.
- Peel the beet and shred it. Mix with greens.
- Wash and clean the flowers. Pat dry.
- Carefully mix the flowers with greens and shredded beet.
- In a small bowl whisk a dressing using all the orange juice, olive oil, honey, yogurt, salt and pepper. Adjust proportions to your personal preference. Add more yogurt if you want your dressing to be very creamy. I used 1/3 yogurt, 1/3 orange juice and 1/3 olive oil.
- Pour the dressing over your salad and enjoy it in good company.
This colorful salad will wake up your senses. Spring comes a bit late this year, but we can celebrate it anyway by simply adding ingredients that bring smiles to our faces.
Wishing you a fabulous day every day - in radiant health, passionately raw - Dominique
Dominique Allmon©2013