From the Summer 2013 issue of Scrubs
Summertime and the cookin’ is easy, at least for salad lovers. “Seasonal ingredients are bursting from the vines, and that means your options are virtually endless,” says Jeanne Kelley, a Los Angeles-based chef and author. For Kelley, a trip to bountiful is as close as her backyard. Between her garden, chicken coop and beehives, she picks, snips and collects fresh veggies, herbs, eggs and honey to create nature’s best recipes, including the signature salads she shares here.

“Salads are hearty enough for dinner, and they’re perfect healthy lunches, especially for people like nurses who need a well-balanced meal mid-workday to help them maintain their stamina,” she says. “And contrary to popular belief, salads are easy to fix ahead of time and pack up beautifully so you can take them to work.”

Going Green

The Name Game

Arugula: Rocket, roquette, rucola
Butterhead: Butter lettuce, Boston, bibb, limestone
Chard: Swiss chard
Cress: Watercress, upland cress, curly cress, and land cress.
Crisphead: Iceberg
Endive: Belgian endive, French endive, witloof, witloof chicory, Belgium chicory
Escarole: Batavian endive, scarole, broad-leaved endive
Frisée: Curly endive, curly chicory
Mâche: Field salad, lamb’s lettuce, corn salad, field lettuce
Mesclun: Spring salad, field greens, spring mix
Mizuna: Japanese greens, spider mustard, potherb mustard, California peppergrass
Oakleaf: Red oak leaf, green oak leaf
Radicchio: Chioggia, red chicory, red Italian
Romaine: Cos lettuce
Tatsoi: Spoon cabbage, rosette, bok choy
Kale: This hearty green may have gained popularity in pressed juice drinks, but kale salads? “You bet,” says cookbook author Jeanne Kelley. “I toss kale with dressing on a Sunday, and eat it all week long.” While she admits it’s an acquired taste, Kelley contends, “Once you start eating kale, you feel so good afterwards your body actually craves it.” And if you never acquire a taste for kale, well, there are plenty more greens to choose from.

Eat Your Vitamins

To ensure you’re getting your daily value (DV) of vitamins and minerals, vary the color and types of veggies you choose. Greens are a good source of fiber, vitamins A and C, calcium, and iron. As a rule, dark green leaves have more vitamins than light colored varieties, and loose-leaf lettuce packs a more powerful nutritional punch than head lettuce.

We’ve done the math:

2 cups of raw green leaf lettuce =
> 100% of the DV for Vitamin A,
> 150% of the DV for Vitamin K
> 20% of the DV of Vitamin C

2 cups of raw spinach = 4 X DV of Vitamin K
>100% DV for Vitamin A
>25% DV of manganese, Vitamin C and folate
+ iron, magnesium and potassium

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