Dear Mother Nature...it's MARCH, not AUGUST!

Spring was just stretching and yawning when Summer hip-checked her aside and flopped down on Someday Farm, grining a big, satisfied smile.

Humph.

I won't go into a diatribe about climate change or the springs I used to remember as a kid. But COME ON! It should NOT be 24 degrees in MARCH.

The warm weather does make me feel frisky...for greens, people. GREENS! Nice, fresh lettuce and spinach and herbs. Which, of course, means only one thing: salad is on the menu again at Someday.

When I volunteered as a newsletter writer for the CSA in Waterloo, I had to come up with new and wonderful ways to eat greens, because we got a LOT of them in our food boxes in the spring. So I started inventing weird and wonderful salads. I used to think salad was boring-o, but it turns out you can be as funky and decorative with salad ingredients as you can with soup.

So here you go...one of my latest faves.

Asian Beef n'Greens
Marinade
- 1 clove garlic, smashed
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 3 tbsp rice vinegar
- 5 thin slices fresh ginger
- dash of five spice powder if you have it

Dressing
1/8 cup rice vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
squeeze of lime
1 clove garlic, minced
1 slice ginger, minced
salt to taste

Other ingredients
1 medium chunk flank steak
4 cups greens of your choice (I like using a combo of iceburg lettuce, baby bok choy and spinach b/c they can hold up to the temperature and weight of the beef)
1 carrot, sliced diagonally
2 stalks celery, sliced diagonally
1 handful snow peas, ends trimmed & cut in half
2 green onions, sliced diagonally
2 handfuls bean sprouts
10 basil leaves, torn
1/8 cup sesame seeds, toasted in a frying pan over low heat until fragrant
2 cups cooked rice noodles (optional)

1. Whisk up the marinade & pour into a big leak-proof bag. Throw in the flank steak and marinate up to 12 hours in the fridge.
2. Grill your steak over medium heat on the BBQ for 10 minutes on each side. Do not overcook! Make sure it's still a bit pinkish in the middle, or you'll be sorry. Let it rest on a cutting board for 5 minutes. Slice thinly against the grain.
3. If you're using the noodles, lay them out like a nice bird's nest on a platter. Then assemble your veggies on top: greens first, carrots & celery & snow peas next, then sprouts and onions.
4. Lay your slices of delightfully pink steak in any artful way you wish on top of the salad. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds and basil leaves.
5. Serve the dressing separately so each person can decide how much they want, or forget about the whole platter thing, chuck all the ingredients in a bowl with the dressing and serve it like a piece of abstract salad art. It still tastes delicious.