By Jodee Weiland

We love grilled zucchini in our home any time of the year!

At our house in the summer months, it is not unusual for us to grill our meals.   As I have mentioned before, we actually grill all year long, even when it’s snowing out, so in the summer, we grill even more.  Grilling meats, fish, and vegetables on our gas grill is a healthy alternative as well.  Sometimes though, we will grill more than we need, especially with grilled zucchini.  We love it, so when we pick out zucchini to grill, we tend to buy more than we need.  The question then is what to do with the leftover grilled zucchini without turning it into mush.  I have a great recipe for that!

I got the idea to put our leftover grilled zucchini together with tomatoes for a salad when I had an abundance of Roma tomatoes from my garden that needed to be used.  I love both, so I thought why not combine these two foods with a little red onion and toss it together with some Balsamic vinaigrette for a salad.  Tomatoes and zucchini have always gone together well, so this was an easy way to use up two items in my kitchen that I did not want to see go to waste.  Besides that, I knew it would taste great, be easy to put together, and be healthy as well.  I was right and now it has become a new favorite for me and my family!

Grilled Zucchini and Roma Tomato Salad…A Great Side Dish for Any Meal 

8 to 12 fresh Roma tomatoes quartered
1 to 2 grilled zucchinis cut lengthwise into quarters and then cubed
1 slice of a large red onion or more diced
Balsamic vinaigrette to taste

Wash and quarter the Roma tomatoes.  Take the cold grilled zucchini and cut into bite size cubes and add this to the quartered tomatoes.  Cut one slice of a large red onion up into diced pieces.  Add this to the tomatoes and grilled zucchini.  Drizzle with balsamic vinaigrette to taste and serve.

Not only does this salad taste good, but it also adds a colorful side dish to your table.  The truth is it is so good, I probably will be making sure I have some leftover grilled zucchini when we have it, so I can make this salad the next day with dinner.  The tastes blend together just right because your zucchini is already seasoned from grilling it.  Then adding the red onion and balsamic vinaigrette adds just the right blend of flavors enhancing both your tomatoes and zucchini.  It’s a great way to use all those summer tomatoes and any leftover grilled zucchini.  You can even add other leftover grilled vegetables and change it up a little.  Be creative and when you eat this salad, enjoy!

By Jodee Weiland

With summer here and the vegetable garden growing, I picked some baby kale leaves from my garden before the weather got too hot.

Kale and high heat do not go well together.  The kale has a tendency to get bitter tasting, so clipping baby kale leaves prior to our higher temperatures made this salad an easy, tasty, and healthy addition to our dinner table.

After picking my kale leaves and cleaning them, I put them in the fridge overnight in my crisper.  This preserves the kale, but it also gives it a crispy texture that I enjoy in my salads.  There’s nothing I hate more than a limp salad, what I have been known to refer to as dead lettuce or kale leaf.  Freshness is important when preparing food, so I like to use a crisper with fresh greens.

Putting this together was simply a matter of choosing the right ingredients to create the flavor I was looking for in a kale salad.  Because kale tends to have a different flavor from various lettuce types, I felt it needed both a touch of some typical salad ingredients and then some sweeter tones by adding fresh blueberries and using a raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing.  I love raspberries and blueberries together, so bringing the two together in this ways seemed a natural to me.  Add in the creamy flavor of crumbled goat cheese and the crunchy touch of walnuts along with a Roma tomato, and you have a delightful tasting kale salad.

Kale Salad…With Goat cheese, Walnuts, Roma Tomato, and Blueberries

These ingredients are per salad serving:

1 to 2 cups cleaned baby kale leaves
1/4 cup walnuts
1 slice Roma tomato
1 ounce crumbled goat cheese
I/4 cup fresh blueberries
Raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing

Clean your baby kale leaves and place in a crisper overnight.  The next day put the kale leaves in your dish, and then add the walnuts.  Crumble the goat cheese over the top of the salad.  Add your sliced Roma tomato and the blueberries.  Finish this off with a raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing.

Putting this salad together couldn’t be easier, and the taste is absolutely delicious.  All the flavors blend together well, making this salad refreshing and very tasty.  Not only is it tasty, but by using kale, the nutritional value and health benefits are much higher than using regular lettuce.  This salad is a great side to any meal, but it can also be eaten by itself as a meal.  On a hot summer day, this salad, a crusty loaf of fresh bread, and a glass of wine would be an excellent choice for a meal.  The salad by itself is about 363 calories without dressing.  It has about 13 grams of protein and because of the kale is high in natural Vitamin A.  Read up on kale, and you will be amazed at the health benefits, such as lowering cholesterol, helping to prevent cancer, and more.  So if you decide to try this salad, remember it not only tastes good, it’s healthy as well.  Enjoy!