More on salad: read on, too many ingredients

Most of think of cool, light salads when the weather gets hot. You think of those cool lettuces, with other things mixed in, and a nice light dressing, perhaps with some cold protein like chicken or shrimp on it, and it's a meal.

Just one thing: in the hot weather, lettuce, spinach and all those nice light greens we're used to in salads, simply do not grow well. In hot weather, spinach disappears. Lettuces grow, but they "bolt," that is, they sort of spring up, form flowers and seed heads and just become "tough" if you can believe that. There have been times when I have bitten into leaves of a summer salad, and felt like I was chewing leather (not that that is necessarily a BAD thing, but if you're expecting lettuce...).

So, what does one do in a situation like this? The solution is: you get creative.

You CAN get lettuce, but it may be difficult to get plenty of it, or frustrating to find the ones you want. Or, it's become expensive to the point where you're saying "They want WHAT for lettuce?"

Of course, you may, simply, not be a fan of lettuce in your salads, and that's fine too. The salad that follows is one where you can in fact leave the lettuce out. It's designed for someone who wants an ample, interesting salad, where you can move things around. It is a reconstruction of a salad Annalena ate at her beloved Barbuto and made for her beloved Ken, Keith and Vince, as well as the Guyman. It is good.

Let's start with the dressing, which is yogurt based. I think one of the reasons why people do not like yogurt dressings is that they are not complex enough. Salt, pepper and yogurt do not a dressing make. Mine involves dill weed - the seed heads, rather than the leaves. I pull them off of "crown dill," which is exactly what it sounds like. This is the dill that has "gone to seed," so to speak. You will need about a tablespoon of that stuff, which is a good handful of plants. When you have it, pour about three tablespoons of white vinegar over it, and let it steep for fifteen minutes.

Now, add about a third the volume of vinegar, of mustard, and then double the volume of olive oil. Also add salt. Shake this all up and then add one container of yogurt. I used full fat sheep's milk yogurt. This is one where (don't y'all faint), you probably could use non fat yogurt, but do Annalena a favor: use one that does not have stabilizers in it (read the label). Stabilizers in yogurt make it seem almost like jello. You don't want that, do you?

Shake that all up, taste it, and correct it for seasoning. Put it aside. The mustard, as you know from Annalena's blogs, acts as an emulsifier, and your dressing will not separate.

Let us now address the salad itself. We start with beets. Again, there are prior blog entries, teaching you how to steam roast beets. Annalena does so every two weeks, which is about how long beets last in her refrigerator. She likes to use yellow and red ones, and counts on two small to medium sized beets per person. Cut them in half, or quarter them, as you see fit. Then, chop up the equivalent of half a kirby cucumber a person, into small dice, and add it to the beets. Now, for every four people, one ripe avocado, sliced thinly (if you have a sharp knife, you can make the cuts right through the skin of the avocado, and then drop the flesh right into your salad bowl.

Ok, now some more fun. When you buy stone fruit, like peaches and nectarines, there's always one or two that just doesn't ripen. This is where you use it. Slice circular cuts off of the fruit. It's not hard, and when you get to the pit, just do the best you can with slicing around it. The fruit is an add in, it's not the main thing. Now, some young, semi firm cheese: young pecorino, or fontina, or something like that. Cube up about an ounce per person.

We've got an interesting salad going now, don't we? You could stop here, but if you happen to have a head of a loose, or butter leaf lettuce available, use it. Wash it, tear it into bits, and toss it into the bowl with the other ingredients. Mix everything up and then pour the dressing over it.

If you're feeling exuberant, how about some more dill, snipped on top, and a handful of toasted nuts?

This was the salad for the end of our meal last night. The bowl was empty, and the plates were clean- AFTER some duck breast , israeli couscous, and pole beans.

I guess they liked it.