the salad that fills you up

I'm sitting here at the Montreal airport, waiting for my flight to Halifax in 2 hours. We made it to the airport really early, but that's okay - I'm SO glad to be sitting down and with that the horrific bus ride of death overwith. Seriously. It was a sweaty bus (you know the kind), standing room only, I was heavily encumbered with luggage... my worst nightmare. I'm already a bull in a china shop on a good day.

But let's not talk about that. Let's talk about this salad. I'm not sure if this salad was my mom's idea, or if she learned it from her mom, or a book, or wherever, but this is something she used to make for me from time to time. It was made up of the various veggies we had in our vegetable crisper, but the three things that remained constant were the cottage cheese, the dollop of mayo and the avocado.

Not only does this salad have all the benefits that salads generally have - it's healthy, fresh-tasting and you can give yourself a pat on the back for making a meal of it - but it actually fills you up. This is not a common trait in salads. I eat a salad as a meal, I'm hungry in half an hour. Unless it's this salad.

This is another one of those recipes-without-a-recipe (more of a meal idea than anything else), and the whole point is that it's versatile enough to use up what needs to get eaten. This salad does not discriminate. It's totally welcoming to all vegetables. But what makes this salad so filling is that it is protein-rich, stemming from the cottage cheese, the chickpeas and of course the avocado, which I lovingly describe as nature's stick of butter.

the salad that fills you up

crucial ingredients:
some kind of lettuce
cottage cheese
chickpeas
mayonnaise
lemon juice and/or vinegar
some kind of oil
as many veggies as possible!

The base of the above-pictured salad contained spring mix, tomato, green pepper, cucumber, green onion, avocado, chopped fresh dill and chickpeas. I dressed it with a drizzle of olive oil, a squish of lemon juice, a splash of white wine vinegar, salt and pepper and tossed. On top, I dolloped about a quarter cup of 2% cottage cheese and about a tablespoon of mayonnaise. Salt, pepper and a final squish of lemon juice, and we're away! Eat the whole thing yourself as a meal, and you won't be hungry later, I promise.