Don’t know what I’m doing having a cold salad on such a chilly, dreary day. Probably because I really do think salads are one of the easiest foods to prepare. Heating a soup would have taken much more effort. But when winter comes, it’s worth it.
So to make up for the chill of my lettuce, I had a hot beverage on the side
This is a Dandelion Herbal drink that Lauren brought me. Quote the website: “It is made of water-soluble extracts of roasted roots of dandelion, chicory and beets, and the grains of barley and rye.” Once brewed it tasted just like Pero to me. A bit roasty and earthy but also smooth and rich. Thumbs up for the convenient to-go pouch!
My salad was a wonderful mish of moshed up things: carrot, bell pepper, olive oil, VINEGAR (!), pecans, goat feta, sea salt and dried Frog Hollow ranier cherries
Jeff at Frog Hollow Farm sent me goodie box after meeting him at Foodbuzz this weekend (and the year before and the year before) – including a mix of dried fruits (their fuzzy fermented-y peaches are the best!) and pears! Thank you Jeff!
Sunny side up with toast on the side – our 100% whole wheat cranberry orange bread!
My mom uncovered this linen last weekend – thought I needed it for the blog! Sometimes I forget my name actually has 9 letters…
{ 73 comments… read them below or add one }
I honestly don’t think I say this nearly enough. I am OBSESSED with goat cheese. I make (okay, graciously ask) my Mom bring me the local garlic dill goat cheese from Rochester to my dorm so I can have it in my fridge. Kid you not, I eat it at least twice a day. Magic.
I’ve heard amazing things about dandy blend, my girl Lisa at thrive-style.com loves it for its natural-ness and apparent coffee-like flavor. Have a good afternoon chica!!
Me too
(re. goat cheese)
I’m glad I’m not the only one that eats so much goat cheese. I get a large log of it from the grocery store, bring it to work, and eat it during meetings with rice crackers. Sometimes it’s a whole meal. We should start a goat cheese club…
Love the embroidered linen
I am craving hot food – not sure what though…maybe some spaghetti for dinner?
That linen is so pretty! Oh and I absolutely love Frog Hollow Farm – their pears are some of the best I’ve had in my life. That salad looks great too! I usually have a hot beverage with my meal on a cold day – it totally just warms you up from the inside out
I am loving pears right now! They’ve been so fresh and delicious lately! I really want to try those frog hollow ones though!
I really like your linen – it’s so pretty. I love having personalized linens to make them extra special!
Those pears look so delicious! I’ve been eating them nonstop these days.
Mmmm I bet their dried fruits at frog hollow are stellar since their fresh is so good.
I LOVE getting pears! I can’t wait until Christmas, some friends of ours always send Harry and David pears. As long as my dad hasn’t eaten them all before I get home… And I spell it Kathryn! Everyone thinks my way is weird, but I like it.
Can’t believe that you wrote that heating up soup takes too much effort after the whole lemon debacle yesterday! Way to not let the haters get you down! The napkin is cute…it’s great that you have so many things peronalized just for you in your house!!
And that you used vinegar! Badass.
I really am a very lazy cook! Lazy meaning I don’t like to spend hours making a mess in the kitchen. While I do have recipes and occasionally like to get down and dirty, this is not a recipe blog! My specialty is “how to make real food taste good in 10 minutes” : )
So basically anything you put in your mouth is real, and anything that you deem not worthy of putting in your mouth is not real.
“Potato fries” are real, for the record. Potatoes are actually good for you in that they contain nutrients – but as a RD, you know that.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here..
Oh my. I truly enjoy reading this blog every day but I have found myself cringing while reading comments vitriolic and nonconstructive in nature. Maybe I’m just a Southerner but where I come from, there is a right way to phrase criticisms and comments. Perhaps I will just stick to reading the main content of the blog. It is lovely, well written, and I find it inspiring in many ways. Thank you Kath
lol @ the vinegar
Interesting though, when I first came to your blog, I thought it was about recipes and that was the focus. Now I can see that it’s really about you and your day to day activities I guess.
It’s about breakfast, lunch and dinner
And because of that, I don’t really want to spend the rest of my day creating recipes. It seems food bloggers are either meals or beautiful recipes. Doing both is really difficult.
Do you not usually use vinegar on your salads?
I often use just vinegar (balsamic or red wine) as salad dressing. Whenever I ordered oil & vinegar with my salad at restaurants when I was a kid, I’d put on a little bit of oil and a whole lot of vinegar…that’s where the flavor is! Now I just use the vinegar haha.
No I often thing it just overpowers everything else
Oh, you’d love the fig balsamic vinegar I got in Oregon this fall (have to go look up the name of the place). It’s so good you could drink it!
Salads are definitely the easiest, best thing to prepare! I always save REAL , warm cooking for extra cold days!
Everything you eat always always looks SO good!
The little baby pumpkin in the background of your picture is adorable! Do you cook with your pumpkins or just use them for decoration? I have 3 pumpkins and no idea what to do with them!
They’re just decor!
Oh what a sweet linen and great re-discovery by your mama. I have a mug that’s really similar to the one you have. My mom got it from a woman who makes handmade pottery on a trip she was on. She thought the pink looked like something I would like and she was right
Love your mug!
Thanks! I think my mom had them made for us years ago, maybe by a lady at her church because I found one with my name on it too.
Perfect eggs!
WHat a pretty egg <—weird way to describe it, but it looks so perfect. Almost like a plastic egg you'd find for kiddos.
In aroundabout way : your meal looks picture perfect delicious.
Oh my – that box of Frog Hollow goodies would’ve MADE my day!
That mish-mosh lunch looks incredible, sometimes a little of everything you have lying around makes the best lunches
A hot beverage and an egg can really do a lot to warm a salad up
Awesome gift box! And I must say, that is one of the most perfect eggs I’ve ever seen!
Thank heavens you remembered the vinegar otherwise it wouldn’t be edible!!
That bread looks so good!! I wish I could come back to GH & get more! Darn work is in the way though. 
Boo.
This is just getting annoying. No one said that salad without vinegar was inedible. Among readers of a food/healthy living/lifestyle blog/whatever else blog, there was a short discussion about various things to put on a salad. That seems pretty normal for this type of forum, where people come to read and write about food.
It was a joke hence the wink face, & I know discussions occur on blogs.
I bet those pears are delicious! My grandmother sends a box of Harry & David pears every Christmas and it baffles me how juicy and sweet they are.
Oh, there’s nothing I like more than receiving a box of Harry & David’s pears for the holidays!!!
Mmmm, that salad looks fabulous! I love salads, but like you said, in the cooler months I need warm food! Next time maybe have a small salad and a cup of soup on the side!
i still have not tried an egg atop a salad… great way to sneak in some protein. i agree, a big lunch salad is a great way to pack in veggies… and super easy. i always feel like i have a little more “leeway” with my dinner choices when i fill up on green at lunch.
That salad looks delicious.. and the bread sounds really nice too! Mmm I looove dried fruit
Cranberry Orange Bread! Oh my ! I love the combination! Also, I was perplexed about the no vinegar on salad…balsamic vinegar is my favourite part of a salad…love the addition of egg…I will sometimes just boil a few and keep them in the fridge handy to toss in my daily lunch salad.
Jealous of the Frog Hollow box! I already asked for dried peaches for Hanukkah! Miss them.
To do list -
Frog Hollow order – ck’d done.
Thanks for the link.
I love all of the old linen. So pretty and delicate!
Mmm…pears. They’re SO delicious this time of the year! I love foods that taste SOOO good that you feel like they SHOULD be bad for you but they’re NOT (i.e. ripe pears!)
Geez… major food envy here. Your lunch looks SO much better than mine!
I usually mix the dandy blend with about 4 oz water, 4 oz milk. And sometimes a little sweetener. But you went hardcore it seems!
FYI if you like it enough to buy it, they sell it in huge bags, too.
I happened upon Frog Hollow Farms when on vacation in San Francisco two years ago. I had a yogurt and fresh fruit parfait, sitting outside the Ferry Building, overlooking the bay…it may have been the best parfait I have ever had…I am always trying to recreate it. Maybe it is just the magic of San Francisco… Thanks for reminding me of that fabulous place!
I love making salads. Especially when you just throw in whatever is in your fridge–you never have to eat the same salad twice!
I never knew what Kath stood for. Now I know!
Just out of curiosity…what DID you think it stood for?! Is Kath short for another name as well?
Kathbecca, perhaps? Kathonia? Kathlizabeth? Kathtron?
Now I’m sad that my name is just Katherine.
Could have been Kathleen or Kathy!
Wait, I want to keep playing this game…
Kathbert
Kathulu
Somebody stop me!
My mom’s name is Kathy, and people call her Kath. Go figure!
That wasn’t very helpful, was it? My mom’s full name is Katleen, but I have to say, Kathert or Kathulu does have certain ring to it…
That is the perfect lunch.
It might have something to do with my goat cheese obsession. I’ve decided this a couple years back.: I WILL own goats someday and I WILL make my own goat cheese. And I WILL share.
I sometimes forget my full name as well….I always get the same 2 pieces of mail, one for each name that I go by.
I love that salads take no time to make at all! They’re so convenient for the busy semester I’ve been having!
oh we have the exact same full name. Never knew that about you! I often forget too.
Yolks are a yummy dressing
I’m with you on the salads during the cooler months, but with a warm egg on top it just seems perfect! I LOVE the warm egg yolk as my salad dressing! Perfect lunch in my book.
Pears are nasty to me, grapes are much easier to eat. To each their own.
I must confess, I’ve never tried an egg on top of a salad. Greens and eggs? They just don’t seem to mix! After seeing countless gorgeous photos of your egg-topped salads, I have to try it!
As much as I eat them, I agree – they don’t mix as well as say, eggs and toast
Almost all of the eggs that you make turn out perfect–mine never get that way.
I love the writing on the linen! It looks so pretty!
http://faithfulsolutions.blogspot.com/
I have never seen anyone put an over easy egg on top of a salad. Where did you learn this?
Just did it one day!
my parents get the frog hollow CSA box. i’m so envious! their produce is just stunning.
Love the salad combo- next time add some pear pieces into it- pears “pair” so well with pecans and goat cheese!
Hmm have never had dandelion tea.. sounds healthful
Adding nuts and goat feta adds so much flavor, it’s almost like you don’t need a dressing!! I loooove that you put an egg on top.. I used to put an egg on top of everything! My husband still jokes about it “why don’t you put an egg on it, it’ll make it taste better” whenever I say something is missing in a dish lol
My name has 9 letters, as well, (Elisabeth) and when taking standardized tests in school…my first name never fit! It was always minus the H, but plenty of space for the last name when you only have 4 letters there…
That dandelion drink looks intriguing, but it’s driving me crazy that the company spelled dandelion wrong right on the package! Or am I mis-seeing things? It looks like it says “with danelion.”
Beautiful salad…eggs are just so sunny! Love, love, love the crano bread
Your salad looks wonderful, even though Thursday was a dreary day. Adding a warm egg was a great idea! Also, I’m so jealous that you received a box of pears and dried fruit from Frog Hollow. They are my absolute favorite farm!!
So funny to see how people are different – I will have soup over salad every time because to me, it’s so much easier to heat up soup (whether homemade or can, even if I’m heating it on the stove) than to wash lettuce, chop ingredients, fry an egg, crumble cheese, etc. and then wrap everything up again neatly and put it away. Plus, you only dirty a bowl and maybe a pan or can opener, as opposed to at least one knife, at least one cutting board, a frying pan, salad bowl and silverware, etc.!