Food & Fun Recipes

Flower Pot Salad Bar

Ingredients

• clay flower pots in assorted sizes
• clear plastic wrap
• tape
• Salad bases - lettuces, spinach, red cabbage
• Vegetables and fruits - broccoli and cauliflower florets, green beans, grated carrots, peas, olives, cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, artichoke hearts, slice mushrooms, bean sprouts, radishes, onion or scallion, red or green peppers, jalapenos, sliced avocado, sliced apples
• Proteins - hard-boiled eggs, chickpeas, crumbled bacon, cubes of ham, luncheon meat strips, cubes of turkey or chicken, crab meat, tuna fish or shrimp, feta cheese, cubes of Swiss cheese, cottage cheese
• Toppings - croutons, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, Parmesan cheese, pecans, fresh herbs
• salad dressing
• croutons
• crackers

Instruction

1. Line flower pots with clear plastic wrap, letting the edges of the wrap hang over so they can be secured with tape.
2. Fill the flower pots with fresh veggies (one kind of veggie for each pot), salad dressing, croutons, sunflower seeds, dips, chips and crackers.

Sequencing Activity

1. After preparing your flower pot salad, recall the sequence of ingredients.
2. List your steps in order as you remember them. Use complete sentences.  Use order words such as first, next, then, finally. 
3. Number your steps.

Salad Trivia

• Since earliest times people have harvested wild leafy plants, especially in spring, when they were young and tender. Some of the wild plants available to early foragers were wild celery, chervils, cresses, and parsley. Salads were among the first cultivated plants that people grew in their gardens.
• In pre-Roman times, People in England enjoyed beet greens. The Roman occupation brought lettuces, cucumbers, carrots, endive and sorrel. Medieval monks planted them among the herbs in their gardens, and Renaissance gardeners developed new varieties and produced them in greater quantities.
• The word "salad" comes from the Latin word "herba salta" or "salted herbs," so called because such greens were usually seasoned with dressings containing lots of salt. Early American colonists called it "sallet." They brought their favorite seeds to the New World, established kitchen gardens, and dined on their seasonal treasures. The first German-American herbal, printed in 1777, included 35 plants used as salads.
• During the late 19th Century, the concept of salads expanded. At first the most daring addition was the fresh tomato, long suspected by some Americans and Western Europeans as dangerous when eaten raw. Fruit salads followed , and by the end of the century, potato, egg, or chicken salads in fancy presentations flourished.
• The modern salad bar probably first emerged in the late 1960s.