Umeboshi Green Goddess Salad Dressing

Salads always make great detox meals and are a tasty addition to your lunchbox or dinner table any time of the year. They make the perfect healthy and simple addition to your meal prep,. and you know you should be getting more leafy greens in your diet if you are looking to get healthier in 2018. If you started growing your own lettuce then you would have a steady fresh supply of greens at your fingertips all year long. It’s a lot easier than you think to start an urban garden, and more affordable than you may have guessed. Also there are some very good reasons why you should grow your own salad.

Organic tastes better: Let’s start with the obvious one first. Organic salads just plain tastes better. When you grown your own it is fresh, it has all of the nutrients you are looking for, and it hasn’t been washed, sprayed, and processed days before it makes it on your plate. If you haven’t had fresh, homegrown lettuce off your own indoor garden before, you’re in for a treat. If you need a little more convincing get your hands on some fresh lettuce from a friend or your local Salad In A Jar party. You’ll be ready to grow your own after the first bite.


You Control The Quality And Variety : One of the best parts of growing your own produce is that you control the type of seeds, what does in the water, and what ends up in the plants. You get to pick what varieties you want to grow so that it doesn't go to waste. That means you have a lot more options than what your local grocer offers. I love growing a French Mache lettuce leaf, just as much as I love my baby spinach.

Regular grocery store produce varieties are grown for easy and uniform growth and longer shelf-life. Their flavor and nutrition aren’t the main concerns, and as such you aren't getting much. During these cold, winter months, mineralization is not rapid enough to supply adequate nutrients for the lettuce crop. This creates an increased soil pH in your commercial products and the availability of phosphorus and some micronutrients to lettuce plants is reduced. That means you aren't getting what you could out of your salad. The opposite is true when you grow your own. You can pick varieties that taste amazing, but may not last more than a few hours in the fridge after you harvest them. 

It’s Healthier : Last but not least, your home-grown salad will be a lot healthier. Nutrients quickly start to deteriorate any time that produce is harvested. This is why I have been so satisfied with the encapsulated whole foods I take, they are quick processed to retain the nutrients from the harvest. When you pick your own salad off your indoor garden, you can go from tower to table in less than a few minutes It doesn’t get any fresher than that, which means you get more of the vitamins in your food. Plus, you control the additives, and anything that happens to the plants while they grow. Beacuse of that you can limit your exposure to pesticides, insecticides and the likes. When you grow organic, you know it actually is organic.

So what is your favorite way to enjoy your salad? I love a big salad with a creamy dressing. Have you ever heard of umeboshi paste? I like to use umeboshi as an anchovy substitute in recipes, and in a creamy Green Goddess dressing, it's a show stopper. You can find umeboshi in most Japanese markets in refrigerated section. It is often called plum or pickled plums, but it is much closer to an apricot. The umeboshi is sometimes served whole, otherwise it is dried whole, made into a paste paste, or sometimes you'll find it in a vinegar form. They are very healthy, which being fermented you could probably guess that. One thing to know, is that these can be artificially dyed. Make sure you know what you are getting when buying them. Eden's Food has the umeboshi paste is completely natural and made using only ancient traditional methods of fermentation. Its pinkish-red color comes the way it should, from the red shiso leaves that are added to the pickling brine. Their paste contains no artificial red dye, preservatives or flavorings, and so if you can find it, that is what I would use.