Summer Salads

When summer comes and life gets active again, it’s always nice NOT to have to think much about what’s for dinner. Summer is the perfect time to have plenty of salad ingredients on hand at any given moment. 

When I moved to Washington, a friend told me…”Washington has nine months of winter and three months of guests”.  Little did I know how true that was.  I moved into a new home in May 1998, and by August I already had 25 different people at various times stay with us for more than a night.  It was mind boggling.  In fact, our first guests helped us move in and stayed a couple more days.  Then right on their heels came two old friends of my husband who “didn’t mind sleeping on mattresses on the floor”, they just wanted to visit the area.  And the steady stream continued for the next three months, just as foretold.

Lucky for me, I was raised in a home with a revolving front door, so the pace wasn’t foreign to me.  I just pulled out my salad recipes, and kept the refrigerator stocked with plenty of fresh ingredients.  That way, I was able to spend more time doing the things I enjoyed, and less time in the kitchen. 

And of course, being invited to a summer BBQ means bringing a side dish.  The recipes you will find on these next pages go beyond the “iceberg lettuce salad” and tempt the palate in many delightful ways.