My wife makes an incredible summer salad. Simple and tasty. Chunk a very ripe tomato. Chunk a cucumber. Slice in some red onion and half to one whole garlic. Toss in some shredded basil. Lightly dress with red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. Let sit in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Go lightly on the salt so that you don’t bleed out the tomatoes. If too tart a little sugar goes a long way. Add some feta when serving if you want to add some protein.
Have her try a Candy Sweet onion in the salad sometime. They are grown locally (PA/NJ) and look like a yellow onion with a thick skin except they usually have a short portion of the stalk attached when harvested...
Super crunchy, sweet, less susceptible to bruising and IMHO 100 times better than a Vidalia or Mayan Sweet onion. Many supermarkets (Giant, Weis) offer them in season and they are VERY popular with farmers in Pennsylvaia because the state encourages their growth as a PA Preferred agricultural product.
Once the tomatoes are coming in earnest, my wife and I eat tomato salad almost every day with all the veggies from the farmer down the road. My salad includes tomatoes, sliced Kirby cucumbers, sliced yellow & green zucchini, Candy Sweet onions, fresh basil (free of charge to regular customers), and chunks of mozzarella cheese.
My dressing is a homemade balsamic vinaigrette I make with some really good balsamic vinegar, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil, French Dijon mustard, fresh garlic, brown sugar, salt & pepper.
BTW - If you want real deal feta and feta to die for, take a road trip Broomall, PA and stop at the
Euro Market. Recommended varieties they sell include Dodoni Feta from Greece, Malincho Beta from Bulgaria (Feta is called Beta in Bulgaria and Malincho offers both sheep & goat's milk varieties) and Valbresso from of all places, France.
I can't even begin to describe all of the othe goodies they sell in addition to the cheese...
FWIW - According to my weather station we got 1.95" of rain and no drama (other than no Internet, cable TV or phone for 40 hours) on my property yesterday.
😉
