Green Salad with Strawberries

This is one of my favorite salads. It is sweet, refreshing, and surprisingly filling. I have wanted to put another salad recipe here for quite a while specifically to talk about salad dressings. Store bought dressing is nearly always made with the kind of cheap, crappy oils that will shorten your lifespan and contribute to poor health. Even products made in higher-end stores nearly always have soy or other harmful oils in them, or emulsifiers and binders which can be equally problematic. Making your own dressing IS NOT HARD, and it usually tastes better anyway, not to mention also being much cheaper and healthier. This dressing can be used on a wide variety of foods or different types of salad, and the basic process can be used to make any flavor of dressing such as using honey and dijon mustard or minced garlic and thyme, and making dressing with coconut oil is really easy because the more stable nature of coconut oil causes it to congeal with the vinegar almost instantly when whisking, where other less stable oils require a lot more effort. Strawberries are also one of the most heavily sprayed crops, so make sure you only ever eat organic strawberries. They are also notoriously sour in the United States. As a general rule, darker red strawberries will be sweeter than lighter shades.

GREEN SALAD WITH STRAWBERRIES
1 package organic strawberries, quartered
1 head lettuce, chopped
1 large cucumber, sliced thin
2 tbsp organic unrefined sugar
4 tbsp coconut oil
4 tbsp white vinegar
1/4 tsp sea salt

In a large bowl add the vinegar, salt, and three whole strawberries with tops removed. Using a fork, smash strawberries into vinegar until reduced to a pulp (you could do this in a blender too). Add sugar and coconut oil and whisk until blended. Add lettuce, toss, then add strawberries and cucumber.