Our garden produced another spectacular cucumber and a few red and yellow tomatoes. I went to the farmer’s market and picked up some mixed baby greens (mesclun). We are having company this week end, so I did not want to use a bottled dressing. A few weeks ago Jan had bought fig balsamic vinegar at the farmer’s market, a few herbs, some olive oil and garlic and you have a dressing.
Karl’s Mesclun Salad with Fig Balsamic Dressing
Note: You know that some one really likes the dressing when they pour the last bit on their plate into a spoon to get the last drop. She was obviously too polite to lick the plate.
Karl’s Mesclun Salad with Fig Balsamic Dressing
Ingredients
Dressing
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 ½ Tbs. Fig balsamic vinegar
1 clove garlic, crushed
¼ tsp. fresh thyme
Pinch sugar
Pinch dry mustard
Pinch black pepper
Pinch kosher salt
3 cups mesclun
6 tomatoes (one red and 5small yellow from our garden)
1 cucumber (Armenian from our garden)
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
½ cup tiny baby carrots
Directions
1. Put the dressing ingredients into a small jar and shake well. Let the dressing sit for 30 minutes, shaking occasionally.
2. Rinse and dry mesclun and add it to a salad bowl.
3. Coarsely chop the tomatoes thinly and add them to the bowl.
4. Peel and coarsely chop the cucumber and add them to the bowl.
5. Chop the celery and carrots, if necessary, and scatter over the salad.
Tip: Baby carrots come in two sizes. Usually, you will find them half an inch thick and 1 to 1 ½ inches long. Slice these into planks. Lucky supermarkets sometimes carry tiny baby carrots, a ¼ inch thick. These you can just toss into the salad.
6. Toss the salad and serve the dressing on the side or sprinkle the dressing over the salad and toss to coat the ingredients with the dressing.
karllueck
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