The Improvisational Salad of the Day: Iceberg Lettuce, mangoes, Mcintosh apples, and oven dried grape tomatoes.

Sweet Red Mangoes from Brazil

You can take the girl out of the tropics but you can't take tropics out of the girl. I can eat about 10 mangoes in one sitting. I love mangoes in salads too. It has the taste of perpetual summer and my childhood in the Philippines. This salad has another interesting addition --oven dried tomatoes, one of my husband's favorite salad toppings. When grape tomatoes bake in the oven with extra virgin olive oil and good quality coarse sea salt, they get a concentrated tomato flavor and a chewier texture. Yum.

1 ripe mango, peeled, pitted and cut into big chunks

2 cups of hand torn iceberg lettuce

1 Macintosh apple cut into 1 inch cubes

Oven dried grape tomatoes, about half a pint

* Cut tomatoes in half

*drizzle with extra virgin olive oil

* liberally season with salt and pepper

*bake for 20 to 30 minutes until they shrivel up.

a couple of sprigs of chopped cilantro for garnish.

Put a handful of lettuce on a plate. Place apple and mango chunks and cilantro on top of the lettuce. Salads look pretty when they are pilled high on a plate. Arrange oven dried tomatoes around the salad. Dress with your favorite lime or lemon based vinaigrette.

The Improvisational Salad of the Day: Swiss Chard with Grape Tomatoes

There's a million ways to make a salad. My salad recipes usually depend on the fresh ingredients I have available in my kitchen that day. I also rely on what flavor combinations I think go well together. Fresh young Swiss chard is a good alternative to lettuce, baby spinach or mesclun greens. Swiss chard is considered a dark leafy green vegetable so you know what that means? It's really good for you. It has tons of vitamins(mostly Vitamin K and A). Today's salad is easy to assemble: First, rinse your veggies in cold water. Dry your veggies well (use a salad spinner for your greens if you have one). Combine torn fresh young Swiss chard, grape tomatoes, chopped yellow bell pepper and thinly sliced red onion. Top with your favorite salad dressing or vinaigrette. :-)