Side Salads for the Week,

Salad. Nutthin' at all wrong with lettuce tomatoes and cucumbers. However the term salad is extremely generic and verrrry far reaching. For this particular post, I AM talking simple salads. Simple - side "summer" salads. Have one, two or maybe maybe three in mind for the week ahead. You needn't have a different one each night of the week, even though there ARE hundreds upon hundreds of them. Gather up the ingredients for the week. It'll take the decision making process away and you won't need to put much thought into it. 

These 3 are all make ahead-able. And are great cold. Make a lot. And you're good to go. One less thing to think about. Add more ingredients to them if you should see yourself running low.

This one is cauliflower, string beans, spiralized carrots and red peppers. Thinly sliced works too. You can leave them raw or blanch them. Add some sliced olives.Maybe capers. Hot sauce, salt, oregano. Fresh parsley, dill or cilantro, verrry tasty equals very satisfying 

Here you've got a combo of cooked and raw veggies: eggplant,carrots, peppers, tomatoes,  onions. Cube two medium eggplants. Cook it up in a large non stick pan with carrots and peppers. Then you can add halved grape tomatoes and red onions, season it however you like! Fresh basil! Garlic, salt and pepper. Maybe red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, cilantro. How about Balsamic vinegar, garlic, rosemary and thyme? Dill, djoin  mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

And here we've got a nice spin on tomato salad. Nice ripe tomatoes, red onions, fresh parsley, sliced green peppers (any color will do). Salt, pepper and lemon juice. Keep those tomatoes on hand. Keep replenishing as needed.