Fresh and Easy Chopped Salad

With the warm weather finally here (well, for a weekend at least), salads have been sounding really good. I love chopped salads but have never tried to make one for some reason. Purple Café, a restaurant and wine bar in the area, makes a really good chopped salad, so I attempted to make a similar one. Theirs has garbanzo beans, tomatoes, avocado, and blue cheese among other things. I decided to keep everything, but instead of blue cheese, I used Beecher’s Flagship Cheese (a Seattle sharp cheddar-ish cheese). I also added cucumber, red onion, a little yellow pepper, and basil. I really think the basil made the salad. For dressing, I decided to make a sweet balsamic vinaigrette (sweetened with honey). The salad turned out amazing! I could have just had that for dinner, but we also made fried chicken to serve with it. And my Peach-O-Rama Tart for dessert... what a satisfying dinner!

If you don’t like any of these ingredients, leave them out, or substitute them with something you do like.

Chopped Salad

Serves 6-8 as a side dish or 4-5 as a main dish

1 head romaine lettuce
1 cucumber, seeded
2 tomatoes, seeded
1 can garbanzo beans (or cook your own from dried - see http://anytimegourmet.blogspot.com/2011/08/dont-buy-canned-beans.html)
1 red, yellow, or orange pepper
½ red onion
5-6 basil leaves, julienned
4 ounces blue cheese, sharp cheddar or other cheese that you like (I used Beecher’s Flagship)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
¼ cup olive oil
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper

Chop all vegetables into roughly the same size. Toss together in a large bowl. In small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together vinegar, honey, oil, salt and pepper. Taste after mixing and add more honey, oil or vinegar to your liking. Dress just before serving. You may not need all of the dressing on the salad, so use about half at first, mix well, then taste to see if it needs more. You can always add more.