I found another way to tolerate veggies

One of the lifestyle changes I'm trying to make is to eat more fruits and vegetables. The fruit I can deal with. It tastes good. All I have to do is remember to buy it, then remember to eat it before it goes bad.

Vegetables are another story. To borrow one of Rob's favorite words, bleh. I like peas, carrots, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and yams--anything with a higher sugar or starch content--because they taste good. But broccoli, cauliflower, bell peppers, or any kind of leafy greens are just gross. I have to add a lot of cheese or poppyseed dressing or something to mask the flavor before I can gag them down.

So today I gathered my courage and tried a recipe I found in an old book by Barbara Barrington Jones. She calls it her power salad. I tweaked it a little bit and it turned out amazingly well. In the book she just gives the ingredients but not specific amounts. I measured as I went along and here's what I came up with.

2 cups finely chopped cabbage (original calls for red, but I only had green)
2 cups finely chopped cauliflower
2 cups finely chopped broccoli
1-1/2 cups chopped mushroom
1 cup finely chopped carrot (original calls for grated)
1 cup chopped tomato
1 cup finely chopped bell pepper (original calls for red, I had yellow)
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
1/2 cup ranch dressing
1/2 cup Italian dressing

Mix the two dressings together, pour over combined veggies, and mix well. (The original recipe calls for light ranch and light Italian, but I used regular to increase the chances I might actually want to eat this concoction.)

I ate about 1-1/2 cups of this salad for lunch with about an ounce of cheddar cheese. It wasn't half bad. The taste was reminiscent of pizza. Of course, if I was given a choice of this salad or pizza, I would pick the pizza. But since I am trying to make more conscientious, healthy choices, this is something that I don't mind eating, and I will be eating more of it. I have to. There's a huge salad bowl full of it in my refrigerator.