Beet salad, please?

Today has started off pretty swell.  The evidence:

-- The 3-month-old slept in till 8:35! (obediently fulfilling my request from the night before)

-- I finally mopped the floor (hate Hate), which is inevitably followed by the declaration - "I am awesome" 

-- Mia and I Skyped with my parents who are celebrating their wedding anniversary today (Go Mom and Dad!)

-- My husband lined up a sitter and a restaurant for Date Night all.by.himself!  I love just showing up to date nights...feels like the early days or something.

-- I made an awesome lunch with surprise left-overs from the fridge.  I only say surprise because I had forgotten about them...silly me.

I thought it worth sharing because it was GOOD.

First, I remembered I had salad dressing leftover from last night..

My old cooking friend Martha gave me this recipe for a dressing, so I shook it up in an old olive jar I stole from our kitchen recycle bin a month ago.  It has been waiting for a life-after-death purpose ever since, and dare I say I found it.  

The picture makes it look huge, but it only holds about a cup and a half of dressing.

Then I found some grilled chicken, carrots, lettuce, feta, and some cooked beets from earlier this week, which brings me to a quick point about beets and taste buds that I feel called to share.

So, I used to HATE beets.  Beets and me..no bueno.  But then one night I found myself at a dinner party, politely eating a beet / goat cheese / spinach / balsamic vinaigrette salad.  It wasn't bad, and I was curious about the fact that it wasn't bad, so I kept trying that salad combo every now and again.  Little by little, I started really liking beets.  Now, you guessed it, we are Bffs.

This situation reminds me of an experiment I read once where a nutritionist wondered if there were "reallly" foods we didn't like, or if not liking them was just the result of us not eating them enough (it was a book about parenting and raising non-picky children).  

So he did an experiment on himself, and for a month ate foods he hated, over and over.  Apparently at the end of the month he was craving those foods he previously disliked, and confirmed for himself that all foods are just acquired tastes, and we can learn to like just about anything (within reason), it just takes repeated exposure to your taste buds.

A controversial topic among picky eaters, I am sure!  But I say - give those foods you don't like a chance! (or 10)!

  

I am a believer.

Happy Saturday!