Salads and Fresh Herbs

It's no secret that I really enjoy making the appetizers, salads and side dishes in our house.  In fact, forget the meat & protein, I could usually just eat all 3 as the entire meal.  In the winter we would make a soup every Sunday night to spread out for our lunches the entire week.  In the summer, I make the salads and try each week to come up with something a little different than the regular lettuce salad.  We also make the homemade vinaigrettes each week.  I can still stomach the Kraft Italian dressing in a bottle as a backup, but my husband turns his nose up at it.  We go through olive oil like crazy in our house and just stocked up on three more flavors this weekend at The Oilerie in Brookfield. 

Lettuce salad with fresh raspberries, red onion, cucumber, toasted walnuts and gorgonzola cheese with a homemade raspberry vinaigrette (not pictured). 

The next salad came from a recipe sent to me by my Mom from Gooseberries Market as she thought it seemed like something we would enjoy.  Gooseberries is this cute little grocery store in Burlington that we have actually stopped at on our way to Lake Geneva.  They have lots of different kinds of brats to choose from that were great to take camping rather than the usual brat fare.  The recipe for the salad can be found Here.  The edamame takes some extra work popping them out of their shells, but the slippery crunch it adds to the salad is well worth it. 

I used this month's Cuisine magazine to make a pasta salad tonight, combining a couple of recipes.  We aren't real big on pasta salads made with mayo, but I used a 50/50 mix of greek yogurt and mayo for this one, as well as some dijon, cider vinegar, sugar, salt & pepper. I added celery, red pepper, red onion, grape tomatoes, cubed pepperjack cheese and fresh basil.  It made A TON and I can't wait to eat it for lunch tomorrow. 

I am in love with my fresh basil and doing my best to give my herbs some major TLC this summer.  My Mother In Law's basil plant looked exactly like this last summer and I knew I wanted to plant my basil in a large pot this year so that I could have basil on steroids too.  My Mom gave me those cute little markers!

For dinner tonight Chris roasted a "beer can chicken" on the grill and I made a cucumber salad inspired by a salad brought by my friend Emilie to a bbq.  Real simple:  cucumber, red onion, white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, sugar and fresh dill from my backyard.

I also made a basil butter using a recipe that I found somewhere on Pinterest or Foodista.  I boiled and smashed some red potatoes and put the basil butter on top.  We will use the rest for a tuna steak recipe later this week.  To make the butter, mix 4 tbsp softened butter, 2 garlic cloves very finely chopped, some red onion finely chopped, zest & juice from 1/2 lemon, salt, pepper and about 3/4 cup of basil finely chopped.  Mash into a smooth paste.

Alright off to watch Food Network Star.  I'm rooting for the young guy Justin and his Rebel With a Culinary Cause P.O.V.  Who are you rooting for?