This salad has a little Central America flavor with beans, limes and cilantro. The beans provide the protein and fiber the avocado is a very heart friendly vegetable, with its potassium and oleic acid (it also makes a great little bowl to hold our beans!).

There are so many different types of salads you can make and they are all relatively simple, so choosing one wasn’t easy. Since "Spring Is In the Air" and I had a bag of Compliments Penne in the pantry, I settled on a pasta salad with sweet peas, fresh asparagus, the first chives from my garden, shaved parmesan and a creamy pesto dressing.

A salad is a compilation of foods usually served at the beginning of a meal, sometimes at the end and every so often it is the meal!

My wife would eat salad every day, if someone was to make it for her; she hates to make salads because she is just so busy that she does not have the time to do it up right.

In the warmer spring and summer months my family and I enjoy salads. They can be a nice light lunch, a first course, side dish or the entire meal! You can make a salad as simple or as complicated as you like, with little to no cooking, which is perfect for the warmer months.