Spring & Summer Sliced Salad ♥

Today's concept salad: One of my very favorites, using Italian-style vegetables with a slight 'bitterness' in their taste, rounded and sweetened with a simple mustard-y vinaigrette.

~recipe & photo updated 2010~

2006 Original: Orangette calls it "Sliced Spring Salad". Gluten-free Girl calls upon its restorative, if habit-forming powers. Food Musings calls it to-die-for (and Mr Food Musings had double helpings).

Me, I'm happy to add this easy, quick, fat-with-flavor but light-in-weight salad to a spring- and summer-salad arsenal. I've made it a dozen times in April, May and June and can attest that it's both filling and satisfying, the perfect salad meal for a hot summer night and a lovely side salad with grilled pork and broiled fish. Orangette is right, however, about it being good especially good spring fare. Its ingredients are readily available in supermarkets when the weather turns warm but before the farmers markets fill with local, hours-from-the-field fruits and vegetables. But it serves that same purpose in summer, when it's Tuesday and the farmers market won't reopen til Friday.

It's another "concept recipe", a platform of inspiration, begging for the addition of each cook's own touches based on taste preferences and on-hand ingredients. Orangette, for example, places 1/4 of an avocado on the list of essential ingredients; me, I include a small bulb of the far-lower-calorie fennel.

FOR THE RECORD With Molly's permission, my variation of Orangette's salad is also published in the July 2006 issue of Sauce, St Louis' terrific monthly food magazine.

2010: "Salad" is my go-to lunch, just vegetables and a little salad dressing. Some times I get bored with the same-old-same-old vegetables and so splurge on these more expensive but remarkable vegetables. They spark up a lunch, for sure!

RECIPE for SPRING & SUMMER SLICED SALAD

Hands-on time: 20 minutes
Time to table: 20 minutes
Serves 1 as a main dish salad, 4 as a side salad

DRESSING (all to taste)
1/2 tablespoon good Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons good red wine vinegar
1/2 tablespoon good olive oil
1/2 teaspoon good salt

SALAD
1 small bulb fennel, root trimmed, sliced cross-wise quite thin
1 Belgian endive, root trimmed, sliced cross-wise quite thin
1/4 head radicchio, sliced thin
2 - 3 radishes, sliced thin
Handful cilantro, chopped
1 tablespoon good feta, crumbled
Optional - chunks of meat, other cheeses, avocado, vegetables, beans, tomatoes

Whisk the dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Add the salad ingredients. Serve and enjoy!

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
Serving 1 - Per Serving: 201 Calories; 7 g Protein; 10 g Tot Fat; 2 g Sat Fat; 26 g Carb; 12 g Fiber; NetCarb 24; 243 mg Calcium; 3 mg Iron; 1454 mg Sodium; 8 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 4 points

Serving 4 - 50 Calories; 2 g Protein; 3 g Tot Fat; 1 g Sat Fat; 7 g Carb; 3 g Fiber; NetCarb4; 61 mg Calcium; 1 mg Iron; 363 mg Sodium; 2 mg Cholesterol, Weight Watchers 1/2 point

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© Copyright Kitchen Parade 2006