Butterhead Lettuce Salad with Chick Peas and Balsamic Vinaigrette

It turns out that living healthy in Singapore is not cheap, folks. It seems like anything green and related to 'ang moh' eg. lettuces and the gang are priced like a gold in here. With a 5SGD bill, guess what you get, just 2 cute bouquet of red and green crispy lettuces, or a very, very slim romaine lettuce. I have to carefully reading all the descriptions on the price tags hanging above those lettuces. And I don't even bothered to go beyond lettuce. If the main salad ingredients are priced like this, it'll be more horrifying to see what's the price for the topping. This makes me miss US, where lettuce are abundant and very much bigger and cheaper.

So with this in mind, I have to be smarter and more creative in what I should throw to my salad bowl, or I'll spend equally like if I buy any salad from a bistro.

After mix and match, here is a new recipe that at least still fits in my budget.

1 pack of butter head lettuce (consists of 2 cute bouquet, just nice for 4 portion), cut to bite size

2 red bell pepper, diced thinly

1 can chick peas, washed and strained

4 eggs, hard boiled, sliced

Vinaigrette: 100ml balsamic vinegar, 50ml olive oil, lemon pepper to your taste, marjoram to your taste, mixed

Assemble:

1. On the bottom place lettuce, then bell pepper, top it with the chick pea and eggs

2. Drizzle the Vinaigrette for finish, 3 tbsp is enough

Storage tips:

1. All ingredients MUST be dry before go into the fridge. With that said, it means that everything must be strained to the last drop of water. Lettuce is the most particular. You'll get a rotten lettuce if you store it wet inside a Tupperware. One way to avoid this is to put 1 layer of strainer inside your Tupperware. This way, at least the water stick to your lettuce will be slowly go down.

2. Separate all the leavies and greenies separate. Mixing them up will cause them to rotten faster. It's the same principle when you see pre-packed salad bowl in supermarkets. They separate your dressings, croutons and greenies, so that it lasts long.

3. Greenies should not be stored more than 3 days, unless you like to have your greenies with dry and red colored ends. I'm very particular about this and that's why I'm so fussy about storage.

4. Eggs should be stored in whole, not cut. Only cut when you want to eat it.