Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Nice Summer Salad Recipe



Tom and I like to go to this nice restaurant about every 3-4 months. It's a really neat place, especially for Kansas, and serves real food. I don't know that it's organic, but a lot of it is locally grown and it's not made with processed garbage. Most of the fun is in the fact that every Wednesday the Row House does a "tasting" ... a four course meal, but you only get a small portion of each course. The idea, I think, is to sample their wares, and then for you to enjoy it enough for you to come back again and order a full order of whatever it is you liked.  


Tom and I enjoy it because it forces us to try things we would have never have tried before. 9 times out of 10 I really like what they present us. There have been a few things (like cucumber soup) that I have had to say "uhmmm... yeah... here Tom eat this quick and make it look like I loved it!"  Ha 


Anyway, we recently ate at Row House and among the other dishes, they served us a fresh salad. The ingredients: Spring mix salad, blueberries, feta cheese and a honey-lime dressing. 


I thought "UGH! I really dislike blueberries, and feta is so... feta-y. Blech!"  Surprisingly, it was very good. The blueberries and feta worked really well together. And the dressing was awesome. 


Tom has always enjoyed the more "fru-fru" salads, rather than just a bunch of vegetables mixed together, so I thought this recipe might be worth trying to figure out.  I probably don't have it just the way Row House prepared it, but I think it's close. 


Salad:


Organic Spring mix
Half cup blueberries
Freshly grated feta (maybe 2-3 tablespoons?)


Dressing:


Juice of two limes
1-2 tablespoons raw honey*
2 tablespoons olive oil


whisk together until blended.


*okay, so raw honey is kind of a pain to work with at times. It's not really runny and it takes forever to incorporate it into a smooth mixture. The first time I used honey (and then nearly threw it away I was so annoyed by the clumps), but I had to work with it for a while. The second time I use some maple syrup--high in antioxidants!--it's more powerful, so I cut the amount by half. 

Place greens in a pretty bowl. 
Sprinkle berries on top of greens. 
Use a mini-grater and grate feta on top of berries.
Pour your whisked dressing and pour over salad.
Toss gently if you want, but you'll lose the pretty berries to the bottom of the bowl.
Use a pretty spoon to serve. Why?  Because it makes it taste better. What? Yes, it does.  

Of course I meant to take a photo of the pretty bowl, but I didn't, so I only have a photo of it served on an ugly plate.



1 comment:

  1. Heather, you have truly inspired me! Making up my shopping list now and reading through your blog, looking for recipes. My kids will be thrilled that I will allow them to eat hot dogs for once! Going to Trader Joes tomorrow to look for some 'acceptable' dogs. Also going to try that salad recipe, yum!

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