September 4, 2016
Veggie Salads
By Linda Dansbury

Due to extreme heat and dry weather, there is a break in lettuce that can be harvested, so if you are a family that loves salads, you may be wondering what to do. Through the year, we eat salads almost every night, but in the summer, I find that the lettuce often gets pushed to the back of the fridge in favor of making vegetable salads. Cucumbers are of course the first, but as I mentioned last week, kale makes delicious salads - such as Kale Caesar Salad. So do carrots and tomatoes - tomatoes are one of, if not my favorite, because the "juice" (read dressing mixed with the tomato juices) at the bottom of the bowl is about the most delicious thing when sopped up with a good loaf of bread. In my family, we peeled the tomatoes, but admittedly when I am in a hurry I just cut them up into slightly larger than bite sized pieces. Add chopped sweet pepper and sliced scallions or onion. Then make a dressing with red wine vinegar, olive oil, a bit of dried oregano, salt, pepper and chopped basil or parsley. Mix up and enjoy. By the way, you can use a drop of balsamic vinegar if you want, but I prefer the lighter red wine vinegar to let the flavors of these delicious tomatoes come through.

I realize that most if not all of your carrots are being eaten out of hand as snacks, but there are 3 delicious salads on this site: Spicy Carrot Salad, Edamame and Carrot Salad with Rice Vinegar, and Lemony Carrot Salad with Dill. Try one or all as a nice change for your dinner table!