Salad Days - Fresh From the Garden

When trying to eat fresh and local foods, it doesn't get much more fresh or local than one's own garden. Maggie's Meadow is starting to produce some delicious deep green spinach. Pretty soon, I'm expecting to see almost more than we can handle. I present to you a gorgeous spinach salad, comprised of all local ingredients.

Everything in it, except for the pecans, came directly from the garden, moments before we ate it. Spinach, radishes, red onion, lovage, pea shoots, teeny-tiny baby carrots (because I just had to see if they are really growing underground - yippee, they are!).

And, this is a vegan, McDougall-friendly salad (but remember, the nuts are used sparingly, not at all if in weight-loss mode). I generally do not use salad dressing, as I love the taste of fresh vegetables.

The pecans came from a local source: there's a park nearby with a huge grove of pecans (an old plantation). The public is permitted to harvest pecans each year. We humans all look like a bunch of squirrels, scurrying around to collect the tasty nutty morsels. Hubby and I picked up about five pounds of nuts back in November. They taste much better than anything I have ever purchased in a store. Stored in the freezer, they last for months and months.