A Really Good Salad

Just like beauty, this is very much in the eyes of the beholder and applies to many dishes.  From garden to chicken to potato or ambrosia the word salad applies to a great variety of dishes but for me unless proceeded by an adjective such as tuna, the word salad means greens, other stuff, and dressing.

For this meal, I wanted what I will call a Mediterranean salad which consisted of romaine lettuce, cukes, onion, red pepper, celery, carrots, olives, anchovies, and feta cheese.  When I was growing up, my parents exposed me to a lot of foods with some I didn’t like (oysters) and others I did like (anchovies) which I’ve yet to figure out why Bev doesn't like on salad – I now also love oysters.  Shot from the web.

For dressing, I used a recipe for Italian from the web which I thought was delicious.  As I’ve mentioned before, I grew up around a lot of Italians and know what I think good Italian dressing tastes like and this recipe was it for me.  It came from Carlsbad Cravings and I followed it as written except for two things – I like mine to be kind of tart so I omitted the sugar but only added one tablespoon of lemon juice – you can manipulate these two ingredients to suit your taste.

INGREDIENTS

3/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons lemon juice (Larry used 1 T)

1/4 cup finely freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 tsp EACH dried parsley, dried basil, garlic powder, onion powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 tsp Each - dried oregano, paprika, pepper

1/2-1 teaspoon sugar or more to taste (Larry omitted)

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Add all the ingredients to a mason jar, cover and shake vigorously OR combine add all ingredients to a medium bowl and whisk to combine.

2. Taste (most accurate taste comes by dipping lettuce in dressing) and adjust according to taste. For less acidity- add more sugar, less tang - add more olive oil, more tang - add additional vinegar.

3. Cover and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks. Shake WELL to recombine before pouring immediately.

Note: I ran the parmesan, oregano, basil, and parsley thru the spice grinder to make them a smaller size.

I thought my salad was outstanding and am looking forward to the next one just like it.  If you like Italian, you may want to give this a try.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

11/27/19 events date