Lifestyle

Summer Salad

summersalad

In the summertime we eat a lot of salads, don’t you? That, and grilled meat. In the winter I fix more soups and casseroles. This is a salad I came up with a few weeks ago that we have been enjoying this summer. I made it when my parents were here, and when they got home my Dad asked my Mother to make it– so she asked me for the recipe. The thing is, I don’t think I’ve made it the same way twice. It’s just pretty versatile that way. But here’s what I started with:

3 large cucumbers, peeled
5 Roma tomatoes
6 or 8 small sweet peppers
1 medium Vidalia sweet onion
4-6 sticks of mozzarella string cheese
black olives (optional)

I cut the vegetables into bite-size pieces and sliced the string cheese into a bowl. It only filled my bowl about half full. I wanted the bowl to be full but that was all the vegetables I had on-hand, so I decided to add pasta to make it go further. I cooked a half box (about 8 ounces) of elbow macaroni and stirred that in. Any kind of small pasta like that would work. You’ll want to make a little extra dressing if you add the pasta. Or to make it “skinnier” leave the pasta out. (The version in the picture does not include pasta. Or the sweet peppers, since I didn’t have any on hand the day I made it this time.) Lyle doesn’t care for black olives so I don’t usually add them, but I like them for extra flavor.

For the dressing, I just kinda eyeball it, but here are approximate measurements:

2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
splash of half-and-half
1/2 teaspoon dried dill weed (or whatever herbs you like)
dash of “Slap Ya Mama” seasoning (which is a blend of salt, black pepper, red pepper, garlic powder– so you could use any or all of those instead)

What’s your favorite meal in the summer? I’m always looking for ideas.

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.