Today, I'm here on my condo deck, on the North shore of Lake Superior. I realized, despite my intense dislike of it, the ugliness-of-summer has arrived.
People are 40' away from me, sunning on the big rock outcropping, splashing in the water, floating on their air mattresses - apparently appreciating this intense heat and humidity 🥵
Even if it's for only 'a couple days' - that's a couple days too long for this old gal. And no, when the dead of winter arrives, I will NOT be thinking back on this wistfully. . .Not a chance!
That said, heat or no heat, I still get hungry. A big salad with the last of my Mexican corn and black beans sounded perfect. As I gathered ingredients I realized I only have grape tomatoes. Now those, and cherry tomatoes are a lot of peoples favorites, but I just don't like the skin to tomato ratio. Give me a big Beefsteak Tomato (which I'll probably peel) for all applications! To me, the texture of tomato skin - and pepper skins - are akin to that of a plastic garbage bag, ick.
So today, when I realized I still wanted to use them somehow, I decided to whir them up into a vegetable-based Salad Dressing! I used everything in the upper left corner of the first picture to dress the green salad: Romaine, mini heirloom iceberg lettuce, onion, green cabbage and broccoli.
Tomatoes, mini peppers, about 1/4c EVOO, 1/2c or a little more of my seasoned mayonnaise (mayo, brown mustard, vinegar, garlic salt and pepper), juice of 1/2 lemon, and seasonings. I used the one shown, a garlic salt with parsley, to which I also added quite a bit of finely ground black pepper to that container. Blend everything together until the vegetables have pretty much liquified.
Chop the vegetables, add dressing and some shaved Manchego sheep's milk cheese. Ahhhh, Salad Days! The big bowl of chopped-sliced greens, will make 4 big or 6 small salads and stay fresh 3-4 day, covered and refrigerated. . .Lin
