Sunday, August 21, 2011

Jeff Pinkham's August Salad




For connoisseurs of home grown tomatoes, August marks the start of the great harvest. But even if your tomatoes are store bought, you will love this salad.

Jeff Pinkham and I were best buds while we attended Southview Junior High in Edina. We shared a love of Schwinn Varsity racing bikes, guitars, music and all of the other things that teenage boys love. We even performed together in the junior high talent contest singing "Blowin' in the Wind". I had not seen him in over 40 years and we had a wonderful opportunity to have dinner together a month ago.

Yesterday I was going to cook a dinner of chicken wings, fresh Minnesota corn and a Caprese salad. Then Jeff posted a photo of this salad on Facebook. It looked outstanding and I had all of the ingredients, so I jettisoned the Caprese salad and made this salad instead.  I loved it. It's simple, healthy and fresh. Serves 4. Thanks, Jeff!

Salad Ingredients
2 large tomatoes*, diced
1 medium onion, diced
20 basil leaves, torn into bite size pieces
1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese

Dressing Ingredients
1/4 cup Balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2/3 cup of olive oil

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine all salad ingredients. Toss.
  2. In a smaller bowl, add vinegars, salt and pepper. Slowly add olive oil while whiskng so that vinaigrette emulsifies.
  3. Add half of the dressing to salad in the large bowl. Toss salad and taste. If desired, add more dressing to taste.
*When you dice the tomatoes, do not remove the seeds and jelly. The seeds and the jelly are where all the flavor is...they contain three times more of the super-delicious glutamic acid than the flesh does.


Wine pairing: Pinot Grigio

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