I adore salad, especially in the summer when I can pick my own tomato. I LOATHE store bought tomato - no taste.
I like making 'everlasting' salads from the garden. I call them everlasting because I start a giant salad with everything EXCEPT lettuce, and when we've eaten what we want for the night I put it back in the fridge, then I just keep picking veggies from the garden and adding them to the same salad. After a while I'll need to add more dressing as it dwindles, but not often as I try to start with a lot of dressing.
On the days that we want lettuce, I break some up and put it in the bottom of our individual salad bowls then put my everlasting salad on top. This way the lettuce doesn't stay in the salad to get all yucky.
The veggies soak up all that yummy dressing, and add to the flavor it, and the salad tastes better every day. I use my own vinegar and oil dressing. The dressing recipe is my gram's.
3 parts olive oil
1 part wine or balsamic vinegar
fresh garlic (from my garden)
fresh ground black pepper
oregano
I don't put salt in my dressing but you can if you wish (I salt my salad at the table). And I never put sugar in the dressing - some people do to cut the acidity - I don't like it. Please don't ask me how much spices ... I never measure. One important note about making the dressing - the spices should always 'touch' the oil BEFORE the vinegar. If the vinegar hits them first they turn bitter.
My everlasting salad usually has the following
Tomato (garden - mixed slicing and cherry - whatever is ripe *today*)
Cucumber (from my garden)
Black Olives
Green Olives
Green Pepper (from my garden)
A smidge of finely chopped or grated onion (from my garden)
and ... Feta cheese!! Ooohh I adore Feta.
This is our dinner tonight along with some garlic bread, and watermelon for afters. This salad started life last week and I just added new veggies this morning - they've been 'soaking' all day. I fully expect the salad to last until the plants stop producing.
Enjoy!!!
Sue