Harris Teeter Lunch Salad Bar

It’s been a while since I ate the Harris Teeter Lunch Bar. I did recently eat the breakfast bar.

I had already shopped at the Walmart across town, and then came back to Pate’s Farm Market and bought some raw peanuts, zucchini, garlic, and a couple of peaches. *I just ate one of the peaches and it was delicious.

I was planning to go to the Harris Teeter for their Salad Bar, but temporarily forgot and made a wrong turn heading over to get my hair cut. I forgot and made a wrong turn, but the guy beside me decided to run a very red, Red Light. I then turned back to get to Harris Teeter and went to their salad bar. I’ve been spoiled by the IGA Salad Bar in Erwin for the last week. I think I’ve eaten there either 4 or 5 times already. The experience the first day was so good that I had to keep coming back. And that experience wasn’t just based upon having a delicious salad, but also a perfectly ripe avocado, and 3 different tasty BBQ chicken wings. All three of those things came together so that I repeatedly said, as I ate in my car, “Now that’s delicious!”

Let me name again those items I enjoyed on the IGA salad bar: sliced hard boiled egg, raisins, broccoli & cauliflower florets (both were small in size), bacon bits, small Spanish olives stuffed with pimentos, sliced cucumber, green bell pepper strips, red onion, freesia & Romaine lettuces and I bought a ripe avocado and sliced that up.

The Harris Teeter Salad Bar didn’t have cauliflower and the broccoli florets were very large, as were the Spanish olives. They did have two whole peeled hard boiled eggs left and I took a whole one and sliced it up later. They had sliced red & yellow sweet bell pepper. *I didn’t buy an avocado at HT, but that is probably because they charge a lot for their avocados.

I liked the IGA salad dressings, Ken’s Honey Mustard and Ken’s Ranch dressing. But to my surprise, I tried a different, and new to me, salad dressing at Harris Teeter today. It was so good that I called Harris Teeter and asked to speak with someone that oversaw their salad bar. The young man was nice enough and went to check for the name of the dressing that I described as “dark green with flecks of green” and “I think it had “Basil” in it’s name. He was gone a short time and came back on the phone. The name of the dressing was “Sweet Basil Vinagrette” by Cindy’s Kitchen. *After I thought about it a while, I recalled the flavor of a Basil Pesto that I had made (Emeril Lagasse) several years ago, and this dressing had a similar flavor. That recipe included garlic, olive oil, and pine nuts, and that pesto went well with steak.

*The images above are from a second visit (and another), the next day. Funny how the labeling on the dressing bottles is plainly obvious, but in my mind, the previous day, would have almost been blank, except for the actual name of each dressing. I know that’s highly unlikely. **Note the whole hard boiled egg, and just beneath it, a very large Spanish olive, and the very large broccoli floret. I’m not sure if I equate these three components to laziness or lack of forethought. But, having experienced the sliced hard boiled egg, and realizing how that makes it easy to spread the egg across the salad as it is being made. Also, seems like making someone take a whole egg (I guess they could cut it, if they had something to cut it with at the salad bar.) instead of scooping several bits would save you some eggs in total. *I’ve included a picture of an egg slicer, not exactly like mine, but like the one I now have in my car to slice the whole hard boiled egg. Such a simple process, that they should perform.

And that damned, gigantic broccoli floret is just too big, not to have to cut into smaller pieces. Yes, the customer can and has to do that, but it makes the overall aesthetic of the salad when it is being prepared, less.

I added a couple of images of a HT Salad Bar lunch that I carried several items from home in a sandwich bag. I boiled my own egg, and took some broccoli sprouts, raisins and olives. The salad bar only cost a little over $4. Never sure if I could get the items cheaper by buying all on the salad bar. Does it save me any money to boil my own egg and bring olives?

I’m thinking I should carry some of the ingredients that HT doesn’t offer, like raisins, sliced cucumber, and cauliflower florets. And, I don’t know where to buy an avocado on the same day I plan to eat it, but if I can find one, then I shall.

The salad I bought at Harris Teeter today only cost $6.60 (that’s without an avocado or chicken wings). I did include a little chicken salad, some seafood salad (the fake, but delicious crab in mayo) and a few chicken and/or ham cubes. Yesterday I had included some of the meats (cubed chicken & ham) on the salad bar in my salad. I think the prices for the whole meal at IGA had been somewhere between $7.50 and $9.50. The higher amount was also due to larger BBQ chicken wings, and me buying an extra avocado for home. Still while prices for eating a breakfast out have creeped up to about $14 with coffee, a filling lunch for $7.50 is a good deal.

I have now started boiling my egg or eggs at home to take with me for my salad bar lunch. But, I realized that peeling the egg after it was done wasn’t working very well. Sometimes the shell comes off easily but other times chunks of the egg white come off with the shell. I finally googled for help on boiling and peeling an egg successfully, and I think I’ve found the right process.

For years I’ve put my uncooked eggs in the cold water and then put the pan on the stove to heat up. I had seen online that eggs should be cooked completely if you boil them for 9 minutes, and this did appear to work for me. I would start the 9 minutes count once the water started to boil. But recently I read that you should put the eggs in boiling water, and not cold, so I tried that. And peeling them did seem to go much easier, but about the second time I tried this, the center of the yolk wasn’t quite cooked. It wasn’t runny, but was a little soft. I wondered why because I had boiled them for 9 minutes. Then while I was rehearsing what might have gone wrong I realized that if I put the eggs in when the water is cold that as the water warms, and before it actually starts boiling, the eggs are being cooked at least partially. So, if I am going to wait to put the eggs in boiling water, then I’m going to have to cook them longer than 9 minutes. I tried 10 minutes and that seemed to solve that problem.

So, after they are boiled you immediately put them in an ice water bath and let them cool completely. You then tap both ends of the egg, to break them slightly, then roll the egg around in your palms to cause more fractures all around the shell and then start peeling from the fat end of the egg (there is a slightly wider end). It worked! It worked! The shell starts to peel of and peels off pretty quickly. So now I have a smooth hard boiled, peeled egg and I put it in my slicer and it’s quick work.

I’m going to put the following item here although it might go elsewhere sometime.

I’ve probably mentioned elsewhere that I like to make my own sweet horseradish mustard (using French’s Yellow Mustard, Inglehoffer Creamy Horseradish, some Agave Nectar and Equal. I use an Inglehoffer squeeze bottle adding all the above contents and shaking it up.

But, I’ve just recalled that I like to slice off a thin slice of sweet potato and eat it. I now see that combining these two items is a very pleasant snack. Who would have thought that raw sweet potato and sweet horseradish mustard would be a great combo? They are!