May 18 Salad

Here’s a good, colorful lunchtime salad with mixed greens, grape tomatoes, chopped carrots, English cucumber and shaved Parmesan and Romano cheeses. In order to add some zest to this mid-day meal I made an Italian-inspired dressing by whisking together ¼ cup red wine vinegar, ¼ cup olive oil (infused with dried red peppers and herbs), a teaspoon of dried oregano and some salt and pepper to taste.

May 10 Salad: Rocking the rocket

I bought a bag of arugula, otherwise known as rocket, at the store the other day. It’s got a sharp, peppery taste, and I love it. A bowl of arugula, grape tomatoes and parmesan shavings tasted great with a little bit of olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice on top.

May 6 Salad

I based this whole salad around the dill that’s been chilling in my fridge for the past couple days. We had a royal potluck at work last week to celebrate Wills and Kate getting hitched. My contribution was a huge batch of tea sandwiches — dill rye, English cucumber, cream cheese and fresh dill. The only thing that would have made this potluck better would have been a visit from one or more of those adorable corgis from “The King’s Speech,” but I digress.

I had dill to spare after the potluck, and thought I’d use it to make the Mustard Dill Vinaigrette that goes along with an orzo salad recipe I absolutely love. I drizzled said dressing over a plate full of butter lettuce, grape tomatoes, English cucumber slices and grilled salmon. Yum.

May 5 Salads: Double trouble

I doubled down on salads today. I assembled a delicious hodgepodge for lunch in order to knock out some remnants from the past few days (baby greens, taco meat, cilantro dressing, beans, red bell pepper).

For dinner, I crafted a sort of Cobb with butter lettuce, hard-boiled egg, crispy turkey bacon, blue cheese crumbles, grape tomatoes and diced cucumber. I also whipped up a batch of balsamic dressing, enough for this and a few more salads. The wonderfully fresh lemon — a home-grown doozy from our neighbor’s gentleman caller — yielded enough juice to easily quadruple this dressing recipe. I reserved the remaining lemon juice for an upcoming salad.

All you need to make some delicious balsamic dressing

Balsamic dressing
(thanks to the Bon Appetit Cookbook for inspiration)
 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
¼ cup olive oil

Whisk first three ingredients in a bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in oil.

Jolly good, indeed