Love green salads. Hate fooling with lettuce prep. Here’s the easy way:
- Buy lettuce or pick it from your garden.
- Separate leaves and place in a salad spinner.
- Wash and dry lettuce in salad spinner.
- Pour off any accumulated water, put the lid back on, and stick the whole thing in your refrigerator.
Voila! Fresh, washed greens that will keep for several days. They will be as good or better than bagged lettuce, and you’ll know they really were washed well (or at least up to your standards), because you did it yourself.
Which spinner? There are many options available, although I have experience with only one, made by Copco, which I heartily endorse. I’ve had this hard-working plastic assembly for 20 years, and it still works great, if you can believe it. It’s finally developed a small crack in the bottom, which means I can’t let it sit around on the counter full of water, but the cranking mechanism still works great. Here’s the current Copco salad spinner. I’d assume it’s as good as my 20-year-old spinner, and a bargain at $10. Then I tried to find one actually being sold on line. The only Copco Turbo White Salad Spinner I found was at iKitchen, which I can’t vouch for, although I suspect it’s fine.
There are plenty of other brands out there. If anyone has one to recommend (or pan), please let us know.
Neil Salkind // Apr 23, 2007 at 7:19 am
We were at a fancy schmany dinner party with menus and all, and there was a listing for hari covert. Now, being the food snob that I am, I was sure it should have been haricot vert. Was this a huge typo on someone’s part, or is this an actual term for these little green beans?
Joanne // Apr 23, 2007 at 3:57 pm
I’d want to know what Hari (Harry?) Covert was doing at any party I attended! :) I think it’s haricot verts if you eat more than one. I pickle mine and make dilly beans…it’s especially yummy year round.
Janet Majure // Apr 23, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I laughed when I read your comments, Neil. Then I did a Google search and discovered that your experience evidently isn’t the only one with hari coverts. Where do these things come from?! One rye commentator things there’s a link to our friend Mata.
You may be a food snob, but it is, as Joanne says, haricots (as in beans) verts (as in green)-French for green beans. In this country, people usually use the term to refer to the skinny tender beans popular in France.