Fresh Green Salad with Avocado and Buffalo Mozarella, recipe from Linda Wiken, #author

If it's as hot where you are as it is here, then tonight demands a light green salad for dinner. It's now my go-turn on too hot days. There are so many ways you can play around to get something a bit unusual and you don't have to turn anything on, except perhaps a small food processor or hand mixer. Then just add some slices of something cold, like the smoked ham I got at the deli, and you're all set with little or no fuss.

I'm at the point where I'm considering keeping the salad the same and just toying around with different dressings, or maybe changing up some of  the summer veggies that get added. It's a limitless recipe, in that case, and who doesn't like salad?

For this one I used purple lettuce leaves as the base although it would taste just as great with a spring salad mix. Fresh green peas go with everything, I figure, and I can hardly wait until they appear on the produce shelves each summer. Well, they're here at last! And, asparagus. Such an elegant, tasty veggie no matter how you prepare it.

What the recipe, which I found at Add a Pinch, suggested was to toss those greens together with an avocado, yogurt dressing -- homemade, I might add. But I always prefer serving the dressing at the side. So, that's what I did. You do what you prefer.

Here's to a healthy, tasty, light and colorful summer of eating.

 (serves 4 but I cut it in half for my own use. I'm giving you the original proportions)


What you'll need for the dressing:

4 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp. whole-milk yogurt
1 avocado
2 tsp. fennel seeds (originally called for poppy seeds)
4 mint leaves, chopped
1 tsp. salt
1/2 jalapeno, diced

 What to do to make the dressing:

In a small blender, place the olive oil, lemon juice, yogurt, avocado, fennel seeds, mint leaves, and jalapeno. Blend until smooth. (This is where I set it aside but the original recipe called for adding 1/4 c. water. I liked it thick.)

For the salad:

1/2 c. fresh peas
8 spears asparagus, trimmed and shaved with a veggie peeler
1 head purple lettuce, torn
1 avocado
1 ball fresh Buffalo Mozzarella (it called for burrata)

How to make the salad:

In a bowl, mix the peas, asparagus and lettuce leaves. If you're going to pre-add the dressing, this is where you do it and mix it up.

To plate the salad, start with a bed of lettuce and peas, top with the asparagus, add the avocado slices around the edge; top with a portion of the Buffalo Mozzarella; add the dressing to the side; and, garnish with fresh mint leaves.

Dine out with the DINNER CLUB MYSTERIES

It's now here --

Marinating in Murder, book #3
Recipes included!

Here's a taste of the reviews:     

Wiken’s third entry to the Dinner Club series is a clever twist on the classic whodunit… The book will have you guessing until the very end…. All in all, an intriguing read by Wiken.” – RT Reviews

"Foodies will love this book and this series. Great recipes are included as well....A fun romp of intrigue filled with foodie fun." -- Open Book Society

ROUX THE DAY,  the second  Dinner Club Mystery is available in paper and as an e-book. 
Recipes included!

TOASTING UP TROUBLE, the first in the Dinner Club Mysteries is available at your favorite bookstore and on-line, as a paperback and as an e-book.  

Recipes included!

Writing as Erika Chase -- the Ashton Corners Book Club Mystery series are available on-line or at your favorite bookstore.

             

Visit Linda at www.lindakwiken.com

Love to hear from you at my Facebook author page and

on Twitter  @LWiken  

Also appearing at www.killercharacters.com

                                                                               

Visit Erika at www.erikachase.com 

 at my Facebook author page

and on Twitter  @erika_chase.