I mentioned that I had a lettuce-related plan but I was coy about the details.
This week in Culinate…
We’ve been eating salad a couple times a week since the farmers market started. Iris has even been gnawing on a leaf here and there. I mention this only briefly in the article, but roasted asparagus, cut into one-inch lengths, is a brilliant salad addition. As Laurie notes, in format and texture it’s kind of like avocado.
I live in the Midwest, and it’s been beastly hot. Though for me, 85 is too hot. Anyway,I was making some pasta salad early, before it gets too hot to cook. I just threw what I had into it, whole wheat rotini, red onions, vidalia onions, a big clove of raw garlic minced into tiny slivers, red bell pepper, and the spoils of my raid on my sister’s erb
garden. This netted me parsley, lemon balm, frilly purple basil, and this frondy fennel sort of herb, along with some garlic chives. I’d picked up some fresh basil and garlic scapes at the farmers market the other day, and roasted them with olive oil and a small sprinkle of balsamic vinegar. I ate the tips, then diced up the stems of the asparagus and chucked it into the salad, and did the same with some of the garlic scapes. Laurie was absolutely right, it
does have a sort of avacado feel, but I love asparagus and hate avacado. The leftover bits of toasted olive oil and vinegar went into the salad, along with a tiny bit more of each. It turned out -very- well, but I am really glad you mentioned adding the asparagus. Thanks!
I’m not a big avocado advocate either, Kate. Sounds like a great salad.
I added a bit of shredded asiago when I served it. And would these count as wood-grained plastic bowls?
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