Today we are making a trip to visit our family on the East Coast, a trip we’ve made so many times over the decades. But this time it’s for such an extra-special wonderfully-wonderful reason. By the time you read this we’ll be getting dressed for our niece’s wedding! In point of fact the festivities will have begun on Friday night, and that’s why we headed out on on Friday morning.

I used to go over to the Wellness store at work and buy a bunch of snacks for the road. But I didn’t have time yesterday, and anyway those snacks are starting to get a little less inspiring to me than they used to be. I was going to say they’re getting a little stale, but not in the “sell by” sort of way. So i thought I’d try something new — I packed up two salads in Ball jars early this morning, and when we get hungry we’ll empty them out into a couple of bowls, stir, and dig in!

Here’s how I did it: I started with green beans, thinly sliced zucchini and carrot slices, and diced red onion on the bottom, and a couple tablespoons of vinaigrette salad dressing. Notice that these are all relatively firm vegetables that should hold up nicely even surrounded by salad dressing. Then you could add softer vegetables, like chunks of cucumber or tomatoes for instance, if I had some. But we made a concerted effort to eat down the inventory this week so nothing would go bad over the weekend while we were celebrating. Then I added pumpkin seeds and a scoop of hummus, followed by a huge handful of green leafy lettuce, washed and dried and torn into small manageable pieces. I tried to include as many colors as I could find around here, and there weren’t many, but there were a few. So that’s it.

Other things that might be nice to add to a salad like this include sweet potato bites, sesame seeds, cubes of tofu or turkey or tofurkey, small cubes of peach or apple, sweet corn, blueberries (i like fruit in salads), chickpeas or cannellini beans, and/or a lump of rice or quinoa. It doesn’t take long to throw together, and you could probably make a couple to take for lunch.

Thank you to my friend and neighbor Jennifer who sent over the lettuce, green beans, and zucchini sometime yesterday. I got home late, and so it was the actual fact of tripping over the bag that provided the inspiration to make salads for our trip!

Blessings to the bride and groom!

Thanks, Jen!  🙂