Thursday, October 12, 2006

HighFived: "Urth Salad"


Urth Caffe
8565 Melrose Ave (off Westmount Dr)
West Hollywood 90069


Every time I go to Urth Caffe I vow never to go back. It’s congested, a pain to park, the crowd is annoying, the servers are not that nice and it’s way way over priced. But I love one of their salads so much I go anyway.. and when I'm not in the mood to deal I make it myself!


The Urth Salad
organic mixed greens, feta chese, roma tomatoes, hearts of palm, garbanzo beans, kalamata olives, and pine nuts in urth vinaigrette dressing. add chicken, turkey, tuna or grilled veggies $3.00 extra . half 8.50 full 11.50

How I order it:
Romaine instead of Mixed greens. No olives. Add grilled chicken.

Cost at Urth: Full Salad 11.50 +Chicken 3.50 +Romaine 3 (yes they have the nerve to charge 3 extra dollars for romaine) Total Cost: $17.50

How I make it:
you can throw it together however you like.. but here are some approximate measurements just to get a sense

Ingredients – In order of importance
Romaine Lettuce- MVP of this salad. Make sure you get fresh (not prepackaged) very cold, crisp lettuce
Pine Nuts – 2 pinches (1 tblspoon)
Feta Cheese – 1/2 inch sliced then crumbled – the fresher the better.
Garbanzo Beans - handful (make sure you drain and rinse before using. They package it in some sort of liquid) 1/4 cup
Hearts of palm – 2 cut up from a can
Cherry tomatoes- handful cut in half (slicing cherry tomatoes in half is the best way to make a regular home-made salad look and taste really fancy)
Grilled chicken– I make my own on the grill.. but you can totally just pick up a piece at WholeFoods.. or make this salad without chicken if you want.

Dressing
You can put on whatever dressing you like. The Urth comes with a vinegarette which is good.. but it’s what makes or breaks this salad. Use whatever dressing you like.. something lemony or with herbs would probably go best.

Calorie Content - HighFive Urth Salad
Garbanzo Beans 1/4 cup, 70 calories
Pine Nuts – 1/8 cup, 115 calories
Grilled chicken - 3 oz, 110 calories
Feta – 1/4 cup, 100 calories
Total: 395 calories before dressing
**Urth dumps almost double the amounts for these ingredients, which almost doubles the calorie count. I'm estimating theirs at about 600-700 calories before dressing**