quest for salad and other impromptu cooking

Oh my, this spring-y herb salad with burrata was all kinds of delightful.

I helped Kyle host a puppy playdate and humans bbq by prepping the easiest but colorfulest and healthfulest dinner. I use the term bbq loosely because out of laziness, I only used the grill for a giant filet of salmon that came with a cedar board. Everything else was a salad.

Green herby salad of dill, cilantro, basil, mint, scallions topped with fried garlic pieces and dressed in the garlicky oil they fried in. Piled over a couple balls of burrata I came across while looking for ricotta at Wegman's. And that over top a bed of mushed peas.

I am obsessed with peas. I declare this quite frequently on my 'longest casually run blog of anyone [Kyle] knows' because it's a fantastic freezer green and goes well in almost anything so instantly makes you feel good about yourself when added. Also the delicate sweetness.

The summery peach salad was inspired by a peach panzanella salad we had at the start of this Boston trip. I opted to omit the toasty bread part since toasty bread was going to be a versatile general carb side for all the salads. Dressed in balsamic honey vinaigrette because that's what I found in the cabinets.

I purchased miso especially for this one because tomatoes + miso = bomb umami bomb.

Another angle of my herby burrata salad that I couldn't get enough of.

And the main that almost became secondary because I was so in love with my herby burrata salad...

Wegman's sells this half salmons with the board and a brown sugar spice mix to season, and since I had all the extra herbs, I made a cilantro-scallion-garlic marinade/sauce to go with.

I came home feeling energized and inspired. Like I could be a healthful living influencer now that I am a beacon of health. It was so easy to put together my simple bbq salads - I should do this at home! Why don't I do this everyday?!?

It was a nice thought and still continues to be a nice thought... seeing as how I've shopped for a selection of greens and herbs two weeks in a row and managed to use... none of it as I intended.

Been sipping on a lot of mint tea because all my mint leaves dried up before I could use them. Had to compost half of my basil... twice. Been eating A LOT of rice and a lot of leftovers, heh. Made no salads.

Until Mishy and I were discussing what to eat besides bread and I had a head of romaine, dill, and peaches waiting for me and my fat ass to do something.

Impromptu salad with peaches, dill, sesame seasoning, dressed in champagne shallot hot honey vinaigrette.

Followed by impromptu pasta dish of caramelized shallot, seafood mushrooms, more dill, garlic pangrattato, and featuring peas!

Also one sexy egg yolk.

See, I'm telling you with the peas. A bright spot of green that suddenly makes you believe I'm having a well balanced meal.

More impromptu meal when I got home late from work with one large melon pan to tide me over.

I found some bun rieu base in my freezer and stirred it into a congee with 1 slowly withering shallot in my pantry, 1 tomato from my coworker, fried egg, fried basil, scallions, chili, and PEAS of course.

More but slightly less sexy egg.

And then the rest of that head of romaine went into a bowl with more dill, more scallions, the remaining fried basil leaves, dressed in grapefruit balsamic, salt, and honey topped with p e a s.

Tune in next week (or month or whenever I update again) to see if Amelia manages to continue her quest to eat! her! vegetables!