Is It Spring Or Summer?

The weather at the Jersey Shore for the past few days has been nothing short of spectacular! The temperature has been in the mid 80’s with lots of beautiful sunshine. It feels much more like summer than it does the middle of spring. I’ve resisted the urge to spend every waking moment outside. There are too many new and fun soap goodies coming your way for me to spend all day in the lounge chair drinking iced tea and soaking in the rays. The weather has been so beautiful that by the time dinner rolls around I am totally NOT in the mood to cook. Those are the kind of nights when a quick salad saves the day!

Here’s one of my favorite go to recipes for a quick dinner salad. Serve it with grilled fish or chicken and you have a complete warm, sunny day meal!

The beauty of this salad is that you can use most any fruit and vegetable combination. I make this salad on the nights that I feel the need to clean out the produce bins. It’s very forgiving, you can use fresh vegetables, thawed frozen vegetables and even left over steamed veggies.

Mustard and Dill Vegetable Salad

For the salad…

Thinly slice up a few of your favorite vegetables and fruits. The combination that I use together most often is cucumbers, red onions, red delicious apples and grapes that have been sliced in half. This time around instead of the grapes I used this beautiful organic carrot that I came across at Wegmans. The little bugger was as big around as the apples in this salad. They really added to the presentation of the dish.

For the dressing…

1/4 cup malt or cider vinegar

1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 heaping tablespoon of whole grain mustard

a generous addition of Daregal fresh frozen dill

Mix all of the dressing ingredients together. Play around with them to get the flavor that you like. I prefer mine to be heavy on the vinegar and herbs with very little oil. You can even throw in a little sour cream to make the dressing a little smoother. The important ingredients here are the whole grain mustard and fresh herbs. Everything else is up for adaptation.

Add the dressing to your sliced veg and fruits. This salad can be refrigerated, but I recommend bringing it to room temperature before serving. It really brightens up the flavors. This is best made the same day that you are going to serve. It doesn’t keep well. Only because the juices from the fruits and vegetables will dilute your dressing.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week and that the weather is beautiful where you are!

I’ll be back next week with the newest addition to our soapy family…soap cupcakes!