Time for Veggie Salads

It is too hot for long cooked foods, but I did prepare quite a few dishes this past week and hope to do a couple of things today in prep for the coming week.

Cucumbers, scallions, parsley - I make my cucumber salad like my grandmother used to. I slice cucumbers on a mandoline (I have a very simple one with a single blade that I purchased mainly for this purpose, a veggie peeler works, but the mandoline makes it go SO much faster!). I add sliced scallions and chopped parsley. The dressing is composed of a little salt, pepper, celery salt, red wine or apple cider vinegar and a neutral oil. This salad keeps for only about a day - the cucs wilt quickly, so I tend to only make enough for one meal.

Snap beans, scallions, garlic scapes, basil - I prepared a large salad. The dressing is red wine vinegar (sometimes I add a splash of balsamic), olive oil, salt and pepper, oregano and a bit of Dijon mustard. I also added chick peas. When I had it for lunch the next day, I added a few crumbles of feta cheese. Really tasty, healthy and it keeps for at least a week!

Summer squash, eggplant - grilled them - I brush with olive oil and sprinkle a bit of salt and pepper - is all it takes. Any leftovers can be incorporated into a pasta salad.

Cheroke, dandelion, endive, cherry tomatoes, scallions - oops! I found a head of endive that had been pushed to the back of the fridge. The outer leaves had gone bad, but the inner ones were fine. I made a hearty green salad with the mix of greens, tomatoes and scallions. I used a stronger flavored sherry vinegar in the dressing and topped with toasted pine nuts.

Summer squash, cilantro - we had a really simple dinner one night - I am sharing the recipe for Sauteed Summer Squash with Chorizo, Cilantro and Lime. Simply cook the chorizo, when browned and cook, remove from pan and add the cubed up summer squash, cook until browned and desired tenderness then add the chorizo back into pan to heat back up, at end add lime zest and the juice from a lime and a nice amount of roughly chopped cilantro. One pan and easy - I had feta cheese so I topped with a little of that.

Cabbage, Swiss chard, scallions, garlic scapes - Made cole slaw roughly to the Asian Style Slaw recipe on this site. It was even good the next day as a topping for a thinly sliced pork sandwich.