Cheery Spring Salad

Raw fruits and vegetables are rich in nutrients, fiber and beneficial anti-oxidants aka they're good for you.  Salads are one of the easiest ways to serve raw foods.  We eat a lot of salads because every meal should include raw foods.  The brighter and deeper the colour of raw fruits and vegetables the better they are for you so I like using salad blends with a lot of colour and then add more colour. 

I make this cheery spring salad using a baby garden blend.  This blend consisted of baby lettuces (green romaine, red romaine, red oak, green oak, tango, lolla, red leaf, green leaf) and baby greens (muzura, arugula, tatsoi, mache, red chard, green chard).  I sprinkled in snow peas, onion slices, raspberries and almond slices drizzled with raspberry vinaigrette.  The beautiful red raspberries shone against their bed of green!

Raspberries are always expensive because they are a very delicate fruit that is difficult to ship and spoils quickly.  I paid $3.97 for a pint of raspberries used for this meal.  About half were used for the salad.  In season I pay $2.25 per pint from the raspberry U-pick.  This year I have finally decided it is time to invest in my own raspberry canes.  They should grow nicely here [if we decide not to move] even in partial shade giving me several locations [and at the new house if we move] where I can plant them.  Each cane will cost about $8 and give a yield of 4 to 6 pints in the second season.