Dill Pickled Zucchini & Sweet Potato Salad

Pickled Veggies:
1/2 cup water or more if needed
3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tsp honey
1/2 lemon, juiced
1 tsp dried dill
1 garlic clove minced finely
3-4 stems cilantro, leaves pulled off, stems diced
4-5 fresh chives diced
himalyan or sea salt to taste
fresh ground pepper to taste
1/4 thinly sliced zucchini (i used a vegetable peeler)
1/4 or less thinly sliced sweet potato
2 tbsp olive oil (save this till the blender step)

Salad:
crispy romaine
tomatoes
avocados

Put all ingredients for the pickled veggies in a bowl except oil. Let this marinate for at least ten minutes, the veggies will be softer. Then drain liquid with a metal strainer and put the liquid into blender, add a scoop or two of the pickled veggie mix into blender also, then add the oil and blend till smooth and creamy for the dressing. Alternately you can drain liquid, add only the oil and whisk or shake till emulsified. Then put the rest of the veggie mixture on a bed of romaine and whatever veggies you'd like. I used tomato and avocado.

You can easily substitute any veggies in the pickling mix, cucumber would be really good. You could also add some diced sweet onion, match stick carrots, etc. You could also switch the cilantro for basil. Fresh herbs really kick up salads a few notches. I keep fresh basil, chives, cilantro, parsley on hand as much as possible.

So lets talk about salt. I love salt, I have always been a salt-a-holic, consuming more than I should... luckily I have always had very low blood pressure, sometimes too low! Anyway, in my quest for better health I did some research on salt. Table salt is basically sea salt that has been stripped of all it's minerals, some has iodine added back in, and a lot of it has added anti-caking substances. Another thing to be aware of is that the label "sea salt" can be mis-leading. Since all of it basically came from the sea at one time or another, any salt can claim it is sea salt but not be any different than the stripped down version that you buy as table salt. So, it may not seem like that big of a deal, for the most part it's not really, but I do not like weird additives.

So what salt should you use? And what is this Himalayan salt I keep talking about? Himalayan salt is a pure salt mined in Pakistan. Its natural color is pink due to the mineral content. It is not processed, nothing is added to it or taken from it, and it contains traces of many different minerals, some sites boast up to 84 different trace minerals. It also has a really good taste. Another good salt is Celtic sea salt. This has a brown shade, I have not tried it yet. Personally I prefer unadulterated foods so I use Himalayan or an unrefined sea salt with no additives, I love the pink shade and flavor of Himalayan. Either way, you need to watch how much salt you eat so I really believe this is personal preference. But overall pure, natural foods are usually best!