Summer Garden Salad

When I usually make salads, I tend to just throw in there whatever I happen to have in my fridge. I received romaine lettuce and radishes as part of my CSA this week, so I thought it was time to explore new salad recipes. I found one on myrecipes.com, originally from the May 2008 Cooking Light magazine. This one caught my eye immediately; look at those colors!

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 teaspoons honey

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

2 teaspoons olive oil

4 cups shredded romaine lettuce

1 container grape tomatoes, halved

1 sliced peeled cucumber

1 chopped orange bell pepper

2-3 larger, thinly sliced radishes

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

1 small yellow squash, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced

1 avocado, mashed

Combine the first five ingredients (lime juice through black pepper) in a bowl. Gradually add the oil, mixing with a whisk.

Prepare all your veggies.

Combine the lettuce and the next 6 ingredients (all but the avocado) in a large bowl. Drizzle dressing over the mixture and toss to coat. Top with avocado.

I somewhat unjustifiably feel like I’m eating healthier when there are a bunch of colors in my food, so this dish made me super happy. The key to this salad is to use the freshest ingredients possible. The dressing was very flavorful and the Dijon mustard gave a good amount of acidity to the salad so no vinegar is really needed in the dressing. The original recipe called for chopped avocado, but I failed miserably in my attempt so I mashed it up to save it. Feel free to use chopped avocado instead; it probably looks more aesthetically pleasing. The recipe also called for yellow pear tomatoes, but I wanted a pop of red in the dish so I substituted in grape tomatoes.