Spring salads

Gosh its been so hot this past few days! Oh did I tell you me and Jamie got a garden patch close to our house? well we did and we are so excited about it! we got gardening books from Columbus metropolitan and spent saturday out in the sun with our neighbour(who is giving his patch to us as he's leaving Columbus), fencing it and getting it ready for plants.

All this and biking - the heat really got to me and I craved salads. So, yesterday we made a spinach and canned beets salad.
Here goes the recipe
Spinach (according to the size of salad you desire)
1 can of beets, rough chopped, not too small ( well, one can was enough for 2 of us for a dinner plate sized salad)
2 sticks of celery

Dressing
4 tbsp olive oil
1.5 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tsp honey
1 clove of garlic

drizzle the dressing on salad with salt and pepper and voila! its done and its absolutely delicious!! The beets do add a nice flavor which was very new to me in salads. You can also add sprouts. We didn't have any so we had to skip it.

Today, we had another interesting salad. Has anybody heard of gado gado? Apparently its an Indonesian salad dressing. I love living in Clintonville. Its eclectic, people are environment friendly, there's the bike path and the park behind my house, antique shops, thrift stores. So one nice weather weekend, on the walk to kroger, we had to pass this Indonesian store called 'Tanahairku'-http://www.tokotanahairku.com/ and we bought 2 salad dressings because they had interesting names. One was called Gado gado. It has roasted peanuts, onion, garlic, peppers, natural coconut sugar and other herbs and spices and another one is called 'Bumbu pecel' (haven't tried yet, but sure will let you know whether its a yay or nay) You have to mix the dressing block with hot water to get a nice creamy texture.
aand We made lettuce wraps! This is how Jamie made it

Make the dressing first (there are instruction on the box- of course you can make your own gado gado paste if you wish)
Boston leaf lettuce ( I think you can use any crisp lettuce which can be wrapped)
Grated carrots
julienned tomatoes
mung bean sprouts
green onions
( yup, we did grocery shopping today)

So onto your lettuce leaf, place as many carrots, tomatoes, sprouts and green onions it will hold, drizzle with dressing, wrap the leaf and crrrrrunnnchhhhh!!!! It is very good.

These days, I really want to improve my stamina. On a good day, I can run comfortably for half an hour. But sometimes, after 10 minutes my abdomen starts cramping and I have to stop and skip machines. Emily says, breathing deeply helps. Will have to try that out.

I took my summer clothing out from hibernation, have to fold my laundry, and pack my sweaters in. Golly ! my room is one big mess and its getting on my nerves! so I will either get it out of my sight or be nice and fold it..until next time..over and out!

Smita