Summer salad with easy viniagrette

By Jess Kehoe

It's July and even though we've had pretty mild weather so far, July can get hot.  And when it's hot I'm not interested in doing any cooking that heats up my kitchen!  Summer is also when we have more access to fresh, local veggies, my family has a share with Garden City Harvest, so we have more greens than we know what to do with right now.  A trip to the farmers market and you easily have a full salad to be made.  When I make salad for dinner, I really like to load it up, to make it feel like a full meal.  I add whatever veggies I have on hand, often steaming up some broccoli or green beans for added interest.  I also like to include a protein.  These day's I like to avoid the pricy meat isle and go for a can of beans and a hard boiled egg, maybe some seeds or nuts as well.  As for dressing, sure the dressing isle has so many choices, but really a simple vinaigrette is so easy to make at home, you should try it!  It's a great back up for when all your store bought dressings are nearly empty (this seems to happen to me a lot!).   I've found, even though my kids are pretty flexible eaters, salad for dinner usually gathers some moans.  But croutons save it for them!  We buy the big bag at Costco, because making croutons is NOT that easy, and not last minute enough, but that Costco bag is perfect.

In general I like to toss my salad with the dressing, but I also have a great hack for your lunch salad, because soggy day old salad is not that enticing.  Grab a pint size mason jar, put your dressing in first, add some veggies that won't get soggy sitting overnight in the dressing, then add the lettuce.  Leave it in the fridge overnight, ready to grab for the next day.  At work, or home, when you dump it into a nice big bowl it's still fresh. 

​Enjoy!

Ingredients:

For the salad, toss together the following in a large bowl (feel free to choose your own veggie adventure, this is just what I had on this day in the fridge!)

4-6 cups of lettuce, cut into bitesize pieces (any kind will work, this one is iceberg and romaine combo)
Two small carrots, sliced
Two radishes, sliced
1/2 kohlrabi, sliced
One small head of broccoli, cut into bite sized pieces and steamed for 3 minutes
One sliced red pepper
Two sliced mushrooms
4 hard boiled eggs
1 can garbanzo beans
Two handfuls of pre-made croutons


For the vinaigrette:  Place the ingredients in a jar and shake vigorously
​
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

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