Making Friends Salad

Making Friends Salad

Ingredients:
(there are no quantities on purpose--it's salad, do as much or as little as you like)

mixed greens/field greens-any kind of greens you like, preferably pre-washed and ready to go
shredded carrots-again, buy them pre-shredded, no need to be a hero
red seedless grapes, sliced lengthwise
raisins/craisins
diced apples or pears
mandarin oranges, canned (yeah, white trash it up with canned fruit, and buy the ones in the light syrup because--live a little--you are already eating salad)
avocado, cubed
Grilled chicken, cubed (I grill 5 lbs of chicken on the weekend, cube it all and freeze it.  No time for that *&$% during the week, right?)

Dressing:
1 part syrup from the oranges
2 parts balsamic vinegar
2 parts tahini paste (the only completely annoying thing to buy on this recipe)
3 parts Olive Oil
salt

Put it all in a container and shake.  Adjust to your taste

Toss the dressing with the salad.  Garnish with tortilla chips (blue corn if you are cool like that) and serve.

The Story:

After terminating my long standing, on again/off again relationship with dairy (that bastard had explosive gas in his arsenal, so, that's right, I surrender) I found a new love in my life.  Mayonnaise.  Which, by the way, is NOT dairy.  Common misconception.  The problem with mayonnaise is this:  it is DELICIOUS and super fattening.  Not a little fattening, not the way I use it.  I don't mind a little junk in the trunk, but months into our exclusive relationship, me and mayo, I was packing for a year-long safari. That said, I spent last summer renewing my relationship with salad.  Ah,salad.  I don't like to eat salad all the time because then it makes you one of those women who eat salad all the time--ladies, you know what I mean.  But, desperate times call for desperate measures.  I also don't want to eat salad all the time because you have to buy a bunch of stuff and do a crapload of prep.  After some experimentation, I came up with this salad that used things I buy anyway (not just for salad) and was still good enough to make me want to do the prep and eat it.  I also make it when friends come over and together we dispel the myth created by the Simpsons, that You Don't Make Friends with Salad .