Too Hot to Cook - Fun Salads

Many of us seem to be suffering the same malaise recently - too hot to be able to cook any of our favorite recipes.

But we still have to eat.

Today I'm sharing two delicious salads.

The first one is my husband's favorite. Sliced chicken salad. It's basically a chicken caesar salad but without the Caesar dressing and no anchovies!

The salad starts with basic greens. I used a mix of romaine and iceberg because iceberg is his favorite.

Ruthy mentioned last week that iceberg is her favorite even though it's not nutritious.  That reminded me of a blog post I did many years ago on Healthy Writer Blog.  Here's the relevant part:

Iceberg Lettuce
Growing up, the only lettuce I ever encountered was iceberg. These days iceberg is said in a voice dripping with scorn, as if the lettuce isn’t worthy of being called a vegetable. So I was curious. Are there any health benefits to the much-maligned iceberg lettuce?

Turns out it’s not all bad.

Compared to other greens, iceberg lettuce falls on the lower end, but it isn’t without health benefits. First of all, it’s low in calories and high in water content. It’s also high in folate (Vitamin B) which makes it good for preventing heart disease and strokes. It’s also an excellent source of Vitamins A, K, C, B6, and Thiamine. Iceberg lettuce is high in dietary fiber and is an excellent source of potassium and manganese and a very good source of iron, calcium, magnesium and phosphorous. It also contains traces of sodium, copper, zinc. (Organic Facts)

Just a bit of trivia I found – Christopher Columbus was said to have brought lettuce to the new world. “Crisphead” was what iceberg was called originally until the 1920’s when transporters began shipping it beneath ice to keep it fresh, which is how it came to be known as iceberg lettuce.(From The Nutritional Value and Health Benefits of Iceberg Lettuce)

So back to the salad.

All that lettuce needed some color.

I had these cool carrots. We love the multi-colored ones and they look so pretty when they're shredded.

Add some sliced radishes, some sliced chicken (I did have to cook this, but you could use precooked.) croutons, and vinaigrette.

Voila!

I thought this striped tomato was too cute.

Salad number 2 -

I don't eat chicken and I'd been waiting to try out an idea, so for my salad after I made the bowl of greens I sliced some yellow and green squash, some low acid tomatoes from the farmer's market, and peaches.

I had intended to grill them on the stove - but it was too hot! So I roasted them quickly under the broiler. (Can you call it roasting if it's under the broiler? Well, I did.)

Tossed them with the vinaigrette and it was done. I did add half of a salmon burger that I had because I wanted to add some protein.

Delicious! The roasted peaches gave the entire salad such a sweet taste. I will definitely be making this again.

 

What are your favorite/unusual things to add to salads?