What's for Dinner: Super Salad

I have a friend who calls a green salad with lots of toppings a "super salad." I thought I would take a page from her book and give that name to the dinner we had the other night.

As I said before, it is just too hot to cook. It is not unusual for the temperature in our home to rise 10 degrees if I am using both the stove and the oven. Given that our A/C is already working overtime and that I don't want heat radiating up at me as I stand over the stove, I prefer the no-cook, no-unnecessary-heat meals.

So here's what I put in this salad:

• Several leaves of green leaf lettuce (if one was measuring probably about six cups of shredded)
• Half a large cucumber, diced
• One large tomato, diced
• One stalk of celery, chopped
• One bell pepper, diced
• Two carrots, julienned
• Two hard boiled eggs, sliced
• Some dried basil sprinkled over it (fresh would work better)

Other potential toppings could be green onion, red onion, olives, croutons, artichoke, asparagus, avocado, tuna, shrimp, beans, cheese, some sort of fruit, or anything else that strikes one's fancy.

Each person put their salad dressing of choice on after they had dished up. I just used balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.

My overall opinion on this was that it was worth all the chopping not to make the house any warmer. My husband said that it was "good but would have been better with cheddar cheese shredded on top."

Romaine Salad with Lime-Garlic Dressing

I found this salad recipe at Orangette. She always has excellent recipes there. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks so yummy! Romaine lettuce is my favorite for salads (although I do like a combination of lettuces, too) and the dressing sounds wonderful.

Summer Romaine Salad with Lime-Garlic Dressing

For dressing:
3 Tbs plus 1 tsp fresh lime juice
5 Tbs good-tasting olive oil
¼ tsp minced garlic
1/8 tsp fine sea salt

For salad:
Romaine lettuce, washed, dried, and cut with a chef’s knife into rough ½-inch strips
Cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
Slivered red onion
Greek feta

First, make the dressing. In a small bowl or jar, combine the lime juice, olive oil, garlic, and salt. Whisk until emulsified, and set aside.

In a salad bowl, combine romaine, cherry tomatoes, and red onion in whatever proportions you like. Toss with dressing to taste, and top with plenty of feta. Serve.

Note: Dressing keeps, covered and chilled, for up to a week.

Beverage Update

Well, we tried the strawberry margaritas with gin instead of tequila and they were quite refreshing. We didn't have any fresh mint so we had to make do with dried. My only quibble with the recipe is that it says it makes 5 cups. That is only if one wrongly assumes that one cup of frozen watermelon is the same as one cup of blended watermelon.

We also tried this frappuccino recipe because it was the only one for which we had all the ingredients on hand. (We had to make chocolate sauce.) It was excellent! We made it a second time and it wasn't as good, probably because we added too much ice.