Salad with Seeds

I was feeling lazy tonight.  So lazy, in fact, I was trying to decide between orange juice or a fruit smoothie for dinner.  I decided chopping and dicing was out of the question, but I hadn't eaten many vegetables during the day (just a handful of snow peas as part of breakfast) so I decided to make a salad.

I would say I have mastered the art of amping up a salad with herbs and I can make a mean salad dressing.  However, I never ever use seeds!  I saw a recipe in Cosmo (February 2012) for a salad with seeds, and I decided that would be the perfect way to go - delicious, filling, and no chopping.

I used pumpkin seeds, fennel seeds, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds.  Fennel was new for me.  I always hear them using it on Iron Chef and Top Chef, but had no idea what it tastes like.  It tastes like a spicy licorice flavor - really tasty.  However, if you aren't used to experimenting with new flavors, you might want to go easy on the fennel until you get used to it.

I got my pumpkin seeds from the snack part of the grocery store - where they have corn nuts, peanuts, etc.  Not the best place, but if I didn't feel like chopping you better believe I didn't feel like digging around in a pumpkin for seeds!

I used 1 teaspoon fennel, 2 tablespoons sesame, two tablespoons poppy, and about 3/4 of a packet of pumpkin seeds.

Toast them over medium heat on your stove top until they start to brown and smell good.

Then, fill your plate with spinach.  I didn't feel like making a dressing either, so I drizzled my salad with a bit of olive oil and ate it with a half lemon on the side.  I also added salt and pepper, as well as some mushrooms I had in the fridge.

The verdict?  A nice new way to enjoy a spinach salad.  One warning though.  Check your teeth after eating! You will have seeds all up in your grill, so make sure you don't want around unaware :)