If you have never tried any of the variations of Napa Valley Spinach Salad, you are really missing out on a delicious salad option. We eat a lot of salad, with a meal or as the main dinner meal all by itself. Typical “dinner salad” that consists of the basics many people include in their salads can get boring real fast, so we always try to come up with healthy recipes that offer different ideas of fruits and/or vegetables to add to our salads for variety and taste.

I recently enjoyed a version of the Napa Valley Spinach Salad with chicken at one of my favorite lunch spots, and couldn’t wait to make the salad at home for my family and visiting friends. To say that the Spinach Salad was a hit for everyone would be an understatement. There are many different ways of making the Napa Valley Spinach Salad, but the differences only amount to what fruits and/or vegetables you like or don’t like, as most of the ingredients are optional according to your tastes and likes.

I use Feta cheese as a topping on some of my own salads, while others may like goat cheese in one of its variations. The goat cheese or feta cheese topping is of course optional as well, so it doesn’t “ruin” the salad if you choose not to use either of the cheeses. Making the Napa Valley Spinach Salad is fast and easy, and most of the ingredients are those we usually buy at the grocery store anyway and almost always have on hand.

Grandpa sometimes makes a fresh spinach salad with just spinach, strawberry slices and balsamic dressing lightly tossed, and it’s been a family favorite ever since. The Napa Valley Spinach salad has a lot more ingredients added to the fresh spinach, and now our salads are as if we’re enjoying our own salad bar at home.

Napa Valley Spinach Salad with Pinot Noir Shallot Vinaigrette Dressing

Even though the spinach salad I enjoyed so much at my favorite lunch restaurant included finely diced shallots, I opted not to use shallots when I made this recipe at home. Given the fact that most salads make very healthy meals, I wasn’t the least bit concerned about the specific “nutritional value” amounts, and just added each vegetable or fruit ingredient to taste rather than following some rule about “a cup of this, or cup of that”.

To make the Napa Valley Spinach Salad with vinaigrette dressing, purchase the following ingredients (those you like) and toss them all together in a large bowl. For the vinaigrette dressing, I bought the Red Wine and Vinegar dressing by Marie, which I found in the refrigerated produce section of the grocery store. There are recipes online on how to make Pinot Noir Vinaigrette dressing, with or without shallots, but I was thrilled to find what I believe to be the perfect dressing for this salad to buy rather than making it myself.

• Fresh spinach (I purchased two 9 oz. bags of fresh spinach) and the salad was enough for four people, as the main meal.
• Grilled chicken – thin slices or chunks
• Crisp bacon – “Real Bacon” bits in a jar is fine too
• Fresh mushrooms – thinly sliced
• Fresh strawberries – sliced or chopped
• Sun-dried cranberries (or sun-dried raisins)
• Julienne red onions
• Granny Smith apples – thinly sliced or chopped
• Candied pecans – (I used cinnamon pecans found in small bags in the produce section)
• Fresh tomato – wedges, slices or chopped
• Goat cheese – lightly crumbled as a topping, or Feta cheese
• Pinot Noir Vinaigrette dressing – or Red Wine Vinegar dressing (Marie’s version is great for this salad!)

The restaurant where I often go for lunch had the thinly sliced granny smith apples and sliced tomato around the edges of the plate, to add color and visual appeal, rather than everything within the salad itself. Keep in mind that these ingredients are optional, so if there are ingredients listed that you don’t particularly like, leave it out of the salad. If there are other “salad bar” type ingredients you or your family like, such as chick peas, go ahead and add them to your Napa Valley Spinach salad.

Eating salads is of course a healthy meal option, whether the salad is the main meal or as a side dish, but having a variety of healthy salad options to change things up at the dinner table sure helps in keeping salad from becoming boring and dull. No one wants to feel as though they “have” to eat salads that are boring and monotonous week after week, so finding a variety of healthy salad recipes that are fun and enjoyable for the whole family has been a priority that tastes great.

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• Healthy Eating For Kids – How to Get Kids to Eat Healthy Foods

Getting kids to eat healthy foods is a growing problem for many parents, especially healthy eating for picky kids. Why is it so hard for parents these days to get their kids to eat healthy foods, I wonder? We hear so much about kids being “picky eaters” and how children refuse to eat anything healthy like vegetables and fresh fruit, and how even toddlers are only willing to eat fried foods, sugary treats, high calorie snacks and junk that have no nutritional value whatsoever.

One of the typical excuses I’ve heard in recent years is that parents are too busy and too tired to prepare and cook after working all day at their jobs, and when they get home after a hard day at work, the last thing they want to do is slave away in the kitchen doing the necessary preparation and cooking to serve a healthy, nutritious meal for their family. Unfortunately, many stay-at-moms have complained about the same problem with their kids. Namely, how to get kids to eat healthy when the kids say they don’t like something?

I’m so glad my kids are all grown now and I don’t have to deal with the problems and struggles of raising young children and teens anymore. Something else I don’t understand is when parents of toddlers talk about their difficulty in getting their little kids as young as 3, 4 or 5 years old to eat anything remotely healthy. Getting toddlers to eat healthy foods is elementary “Parenting 101” as far as I’m concerned.

Healthy Eating For Kids

The idea that it’s so hard to get a toddler to eat healthy foods seems preposterous to me. Geez, if a parent can’t manage to deal with the problems that come from a little kid like a toddler, what are parents going to do when their kid gets a little older, or enters middle school and high school when things really start to get interesting?

Children have to be taught the difference between good and bad eating habits, which starts even before a kid is officially labeled as a toddler, not when kids have already become teens. Teaching healthy eating habits to kids, toddlers and teens is not rocket science. Parents don’t have to become a licensed nutritionist or get a college degree in health subjects to teach kids how to eat healthy and learn to like healthy foods at the same time.

With so much information available online and in books for parents, guardians and caregivers to learn how to teach healthy eating habits for kids of all ages, it seems silly to me to say anything about the need to encourage healthy eating from a very early age by introducing and reintroducing new healthy food items on a regular and continuing basis.

When was the last time you really took an inventory of the kinds of foods found in your refrigerator, freezer, food pantry or cupboards? What types of foods are you as the parent choosing to feed your kids? Are your cupboards primarily filled with high calorie, sugar laden cereals? Twinkies, donuts, chips, cookies, cakes, frozen waffles, pizza and similar unhealthy foods and snacks?

What percentage of the foods in your home would be considered “healthy” versus the percentage of “junk foods”? Who buys the food your family and children have been eating? Whose fault is it if your kids refuse to eat healthy foods, if the majority of the foods you buy for your children and family is fattening junk food?

Are your kids fast food junkies? To be really blunt, if your kids refuse to eat healthy foods and are throwing tantrums and hissy-fits about wanting nothing to eat except unhealthy foods until you give in to their demands, you only need to look in the mirror as to the reasons why children are getting fat and why getting your kids to eat healthy is so hard. Sorry, but it’s true.

Getting Kids to Eat Healthy

Kids throw a fit and start complaining, whining, crying and screaming about what is being served for mealtime, and what do the parents do? Fuss and fight with their kids for awhile, but eventually give in. Your kid is teaching you rather than you teaching your child to eat what has been prepared for the family. You’re allowing your kid(s) to turn you into a short-order cook in your own home. Dr. Phil calls that “the tail wagging the dog”, and today’s parents have fallen for that little trick “hook, line and sinker”.

The primary role and responsibility for parents is to teach their children everything they need to know to become full grown, responsible adults, and it starts from the moment kids are born. If you want your kids to eat healthy, then you as the parent must be a good role model by fixing healthy foods for yourself and for your kids, rather than doing what may seem fast and easy because you are tired or have other things you want to do.

You only get one shot in this life to raise your kids right, and if you don’t take healthy eating seriously enough right now while your children are young and teachable, the rate of obesity in children will continue to skyrocket and their health may be damaged beyond repair.

Even if your kids are in school and are eating the junk foods the school system puts out in the cafeteria, how are you providing your children a well-balanced nutritious healthy meal during the time they are at home with you? What is breakfast like in your home? What are you serving your children for dinner that would help balance the unhealthy foods they may be eating at school?

Getting kids to eat healthy is not that hard. Parents just have to make the firm decision that living a healthy lifestyle matters not only for themselves, but also for their children and teens. When planning a grocery list of foods to buy and a weekly menu of meals to prepare for your family, cross off your list high calorie, fattening foods and create a grocery list of primarily healthy items and begin training you and your children’s taste buds to like healthy foods more than what is unhealthy.

Before long, you will all begin to discover that many unhealthy foods don’t taste nearly as good as it once did and you won‘t crave junk food or salty snacks, and your new healthy eating habits will have become second nature to you and your kids.

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